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Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)
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Sweet, a challenge to avoid 'Blairite' and 'Iraq':
Starmer was put in his post by Jeremy Corbyn, so he must be shit and a cult member. Thems the rules.
Yvette Cooper's role in WCAs should exclude her from any position of power.
Jess Phillips wouldn't want to upset Rees-Mogg by making him a member of the opposition, so she'd refuse to run an election campaign. Especially if he gets the Tory leadership.
That was easy.
If Israel behaves like Nazi Germany shouldn't we be able to say so?
I think it's quite clear that the evaluation of Zionism crucially depends on how one understands the history of antisemitism and the question of its continued existence.
In many ways this is the make or break issue. That's why it's the biggest point of contention when it comes to Israel, and most disputes tend to gravitate towards it. The big, ugly elephant in the room, if you will.
It's too extensive a subject to tackle in this thread, but it might be worthwile to treat it in the Israel-Palestine thread sometime.
Just one final remark: Depending on the answer to this question, the abstract anti-nationalist argument against Zionism you cited at the end could still be wrong.
Small correction - that last line was from 2cents responding to silva, not from me - I forgot to remove it while quoting him. Changed it in my post now.
Alright.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/sh...these-disgraceful-slurs-against-jeremy-corbyn
looks like the author of the IHRA definition of antisemitism is antisemitic too
looks like the author of the IHRA definition of antisemitism is antisemitic too
Yet according to you he's also a massive racist.
As is the Corbyn-supporting author of the piece you linked:
It took until 1990 for my grandmother — who upon her liberation, weighed just 20kg — to even begin speaking about her experiences. She, like the rest of her family (only one of whom still survives now) would carry the trauma with them for the rest of their lives.
(…)
However much she somehow rebuilt her life through the most astounding courage and strength — which included helping smuggle her mother and sisters over the Hungarian-Austrian border in 1956, from where they travelled to safety in the UK — she lived in perpetual fear of it happening again.
At the very core of our being, I think all Jews live with that fear. It’s no good telling us that something cannot happen when we all know that it has, many times over; when our family histories are dominated not just by the Holocaust, but an endless history of pogroms and persecution, hatred and horror. The number one cause of that history? Our lack of a homeland. This enabled scores of tyrants, charlatans and opportunists to keep the Jews out of mainstream society, then turn on us whenever anything went wrong, accusing us of ‘polluting’ the national bloodstream. And it also meant that as the situation across Europe deteriorated dramatically during the 1930s, there was next to no help from its governments; growing hostility from its peoples; and for so many, nowhere to turn.
That was the backdrop behind Israel coming into being. As my grandmother often said to me: “Shaun, we Jews had always been weak. The lesson of the Holocaust was that we had to be strong”. Europe had completely betrayed the Jewish people. Only one place offered salvation.
(…)
However much she somehow rebuilt her life through the most astounding courage and strength — which included helping smuggle her mother and sisters over the Hungarian-Austrian border in 1956, from where they travelled to safety in the UK — she lived in perpetual fear of it happening again.
At the very core of our being, I think all Jews live with that fear. It’s no good telling us that something cannot happen when we all know that it has, many times over; when our family histories are dominated not just by the Holocaust, but an endless history of pogroms and persecution, hatred and horror. The number one cause of that history? Our lack of a homeland. This enabled scores of tyrants, charlatans and opportunists to keep the Jews out of mainstream society, then turn on us whenever anything went wrong, accusing us of ‘polluting’ the national bloodstream. And it also meant that as the situation across Europe deteriorated dramatically during the 1930s, there was next to no help from its governments; growing hostility from its peoples; and for so many, nowhere to turn.
That was the backdrop behind Israel coming into being. As my grandmother often said to me: “Shaun, we Jews had always been weak. The lesson of the Holocaust was that we had to be strong”. Europe had completely betrayed the Jewish people. Only one place offered salvation.
Interesting constellation.
that quote's about the brits postwar actions and the treatment of Palestinians since you div
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Seems I couldn't decipher it then, probably because I've always been under the impression that Zionist Jews and Jewish refugees played some kind of role in the creation of Israel.
The joint editorial today is interesting as it again demonstrates this is about Israel not the Jewish people. it uses the phrases "Corbynite contempt for Jews and Israel" and "a man who has a problem seeing that hateful rhetoric aimed at Israel can easily step into antisemitism, could be our next prime minister".
I wasn't sure exactly who @Silva was referring to in that post so I left it, but this follow-up post had me thinking it must be the Jews, not the Brits:
If he meant the Brits however, fine, although it shows an incredible ignorance of the history.
Such an easily avoidable own goal.
That kind of essentialism (bolded) is obviously wrong and racist, and I'd be alarmed if I saw it go unpunished coming from Corbyn or any Labour leader.
Ya, purely political is wrong. I'm sure there's some genuine complaints. But he's been asked to resign over disagreement over a single line, while at the same time...
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-absolves-hitler-of-guilt-1.5411578
In a speech before the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, Netanyahu described a meeting between Husseini and Hitler in November, 1941: "Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jew. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, 'If you expel them, they'll all come here (to Palestine).' According to Netanyahu, Hitler then asked: "What should I do with them?" and the mufti replied: "Burn them."
Netanyahu's remarks were quick to spark a social media storm, though Netanyahu made a similar claim during a Knesset speech in 2012, where he described the Husseini as "one of the leading architects" of the final solution.
Netanyahu's remarks were quick to spark a social media storm, though Netanyahu made a similar claim during a Knesset speech in 2012, where he described the Husseini as "one of the leading architects" of the final solution.
I don't think it would be unreasonable to ask Corbyn to resign over lines like that, and yet I don't see them remembered outside the left-wing echo chamber (and the right-wing, either to absolve Hitler or to blame Palestinians for the Holocaust). Indeed, Ken Livingstone making kindof similar remarks was front-page news for weeks and he was fired...from Corbyn's antisemitic Labour.
Not Corbyn's biggest fan. It hope he continues to fight any attempt to equate criticism of Isreal with anti-Semitism.
A story, in 2 acts
Those Netanyahu comments caused outrage in Israel, well beyond any "left-wing echo chamber." And his recent meeting with Orban has been widely discussed there as well, although it's been less contentious for a few reasons. Still, it's quite natural for British Jews to be rather more focused on events in Britain, no?
Look, this is easy really. Here's the excellent British Jewish journalist and former Labour Party member Ben Judah on a couple of recent events:
As for "some genuine complaints...over a single line", you've been following this thing long enough to understand that this controversy over the IHRA definition (which seems to have come up at a moment of Labour's own choosing, no?) is just the latest episode in a now long-running saga. It has united what seems to be a majority of politically conscious British Jews. As far as I can tell, the random Jewish orgs that Corbyn and his supporters have produced to back them are generally quite peripheral within the broader British Jewish community, something akin to turning to the Quilliam Foundation or the Ahmadi community for their take on Muslim issues. Not that their voices should be silenced, far from it. But when you have this:
and this:
and the response is typically something like this:
then it seems to me that something is wrong, and there's a basic refusal to try to understand where the complaints are actually coming from. And this I suspect is related to the extreme anti-Zionist left's general inability or refusal to understand what Zionism means for most Jews around the world.
How she's lasted this long I don't know. Will be good to see the back of her. Maybe she can join UKIP.
I actually find it hard to say which version would be more ignorant. I also don't think it matters much, as the meaning of the quote's first sentence is the same either way. It implies Jews who stick up for Israel's existence are racists, which was the point of my reply.
Why don’t you quote more of it to give accurate context?
“Under its adapted guidelines, a Labour Party member is free to claim Israel’s existence is a racist endeavour and compare Israeli policies to those of Nazi Germany, unless “intent” — whatever that means — can be proved. “Dirty Jew” is wrong, “Zionist bitch” fair game?
“In so doing, Labour makes a distinction between racial antisemitism targeting Jews (unacceptable) and political antisemitism targeting Israel (acceptable).
“The reason for this move? Had the full IHRA definition with examples relating to Israel been approved, hundreds, if not thousands, of Labour and Momentum members would need to be expelled.”
No such thing as political antisemitism. This is a very obvious example of stopping people criticising Israel
None of that was in the guardian article i took the above quotes from but it doesn't change my point at all it only furthers it. I've seen numerous commentary to the same effect, that criticism of Israel is seen as a guise for anti-jewish rhetoric and thus must be censored.
That makes very little sense from the sidelines in particular when the accusations are against a mainstream party being accused of institutional anti-semitism.
It's odd that the Corbyn dream, sold as a radical rethinking of the way politics is done, has actually resulted in a complete white-bread, nondescript political party that hasn't really done anything for the last 3 years aside from putting out fires it starts itself. Parties led by those much to the right of Corbyn were far bolder it seems. Everything's a bit limp. Aside from the rows that go on about the leader himself and those like me who criticise him and those like some in this thread whose interest in politics seems to not extend beyond noticing whenever someone criticises him - what else is there? The party has been in suspended animation doing almost literally absolutely nothing whilst huge numbers within it seem to be under the impression they're part of some profound political change that after three years there exists absolutely no evidence for.
Really what has Labour achieved or even said under Corbyn that matters at all to anyone who isn't obsessed with internal Labour party politics? Objectively what else has there been after three fecking years? What do you think people who aren't obsessed with the internal politics of the Labour party can point to?
The point of the party now seems to be for one faction to annoy the other. That's virtually all that's happened for three years. Really what else is there if we strip that away?
1) He sat on the floor of a train once.
2) His supporters have made up a chant.
Really I'd take ANYTHING else that's actually tangible that Corbyn has done since becoming leader. Aside from a safe bet that any Labour party will stand on a platform to increase funding for public services, who can even quote a manifesto pledge from the last election without resorting to Google?
It's with that in mind that the seemingly incomprehensible reality of the worst government in history getting away with implementing the shittist idea ever in the most incompetent way possible still doing fairly well in the polls, starts to make sense. The party is Rick from the Young Ones. Convincing itself that it's starting a revolution because it's standing there picking its nose - not noticing that nobody else gives a flying feck.
Really what has Labour achieved or even said under Corbyn that matters at all to anyone who isn't obsessed with internal Labour party politics? Objectively what else has there been after three fecking years? What do you think people who aren't obsessed with the internal politics of the Labour party can point to?
The point of the party now seems to be for one faction to annoy the other. That's virtually all that's happened for three years. Really what else is there if we strip that away?
1) He sat on the floor of a train once.
2) His supporters have made up a chant.
Really I'd take ANYTHING else that's actually tangible that Corbyn has done since becoming leader. Aside from a safe bet that any Labour party will stand on a platform to increase funding for public services, who can even quote a manifesto pledge from the last election without resorting to Google?
It's with that in mind that the seemingly incomprehensible reality of the worst government in history getting away with implementing the shittist idea ever in the most incompetent way possible still doing fairly well in the polls, starts to make sense. The party is Rick from the Young Ones. Convincing itself that it's starting a revolution because it's standing there picking its nose - not noticing that nobody else gives a flying feck.
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I'm pretty sure Labour is the now the biggest social democratic party in terms of member numbers in Europe but even if not member numbers have exploded under Corbyn.
And this
2017 and the curious demise of Europe's centre-left
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...and-the-curious-demise-of-europes-centre-left
You might want to get out that bubble Oscie.
When you look at the state things are in at the moment and the trajectory we're on as a country, it just seems bizarre to see some on the left indoctrinated into this idea that they're part of some radical, populist movement because they have a chant and hold rallies for each other. There's definitely a disconnect there. And what gets me is how smug and self-satisfied they are with it. As if there's genuine belief that what will be recorded in history as defining political moments in the early part of the 21st Century won't be Britain's suicidal and wholly unnecessary withdrawal from the EU, but instead the fact someone online stuck it to someone else online who they thought was a Blairite.
Not everyone in the party or even everyone within the Corbyn/Momentum supporting group are like that but enough are to make it worrying. Enough people seem to want the party to retreat within itself, leaving the Tories to worry about things like government and running things because they see politics as abstract, obscure and utterly redundant debates about stuff that doesn't actually matter where the winner is whoever mentions the word 'neoliberalism' the most times in a paragraph. There's no real interest in Brexit, or what the Tories are doing. Of course there's general anti-Tory disapproval but beyond that there's not a lot of shits given. Iraq? Blair? Neoliberalism? That's when they come alive and could talk the hind legs off a donkey on shit that matters to nobody except to themselves.
Owen Jones is now a mainstream voice within the Labour movement and still some pretend to be utterly baffled by any criticism of the direction of the party.
Not everyone in the party or even everyone within the Corbyn/Momentum supporting group are like that but enough are to make it worrying. Enough people seem to want the party to retreat within itself, leaving the Tories to worry about things like government and running things because they see politics as abstract, obscure and utterly redundant debates about stuff that doesn't actually matter where the winner is whoever mentions the word 'neoliberalism' the most times in a paragraph. There's no real interest in Brexit, or what the Tories are doing. Of course there's general anti-Tory disapproval but beyond that there's not a lot of shits given. Iraq? Blair? Neoliberalism? That's when they come alive and could talk the hind legs off a donkey on shit that matters to nobody except to themselves.
Owen Jones is now a mainstream voice within the Labour movement and still some pretend to be utterly baffled by any criticism of the direction of the party.
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I'm pretty sure Labour is the now the biggest social democratic party in terms of member numbers in Europe but even if not member numbers have exploded under Corbyn.
And this
2017 and the curious demise of Europe's centre-left
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...and-the-curious-demise-of-europes-centre-left
You might want to get out that bubble Oscie.
You're right. Who cares what else is happening because the party's membership is now comparable to the size of John Major's Tory party in the mid 1990s when it was riddled with sleaze, divided over Europe and on its way to a crushing, landslide election defeat?
Have you got any bunting or shall I nip to the shops?
Cheers Oscie.
See I think a party that wasn't completely irrelevant to the biggest political debate we have ever had or are ever likely to have again in what remains in the lifetime of anyone here, would be more useful. A party that wasn't only doing a cracking job of holding the government's feet to the fire but were actually so effective that through a deployment of intelligent, popular and sensible policies combined with a comprehensive, grown-up and effective media campaign could have the accumulative effect of actually shaping government policy and changing the direction of the country for the better.
Instead we have: membership numbers and crowd sizes. And a supporter base that demonstrably does not give a shit that this is all it has and could not care less about anything else, no matter what the Tories do or how disastrous Brexit is. There's a complete apathy towards anything that doesn't involve noticing someone has been critical of Jeremy Corbyn.
Instead we have: membership numbers and crowd sizes. And a supporter base that demonstrably does not give a shit that this is all it has and could not care less about anything else, no matter what the Tories do or how disastrous Brexit is. There's a complete apathy towards anything that doesn't involve noticing someone has been critical of Jeremy Corbyn.
This is where I say you voted Lib Dem again, right?
So, to get Oscie's backing, you just don't turn up to votes on Brexit because you're busy organising a centrist party 2.0 or waffling on about the perils of homosexuals. Or go back a few years and quite literally help the government pass things that were so controversial, they didn't even put them in their manifesto or even the coalition agreement the Lib Dems signed up to. That'll keep the government's feet to the fire.
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I did earlier today
There was no maybe about it. This has driven by the driven by the desire to stop criticism of Israel.
People who proudly proclaim their love for human rights and democracy, the amazing wonder that is the enlightened judeo-Christian west, forget it when it comes to Israels crimes. A few mealy mouthed words for the dying palestinians, some waffle about a two state solution that will never come, and if that doesn't work as an answer, scream antisemitism to shut down any debate, lest they have to face their own rank hypocrisy.
The IHRA definition of antisemitism has taken on a reverence greater then that reserved for the Torah it seems. People follow what they will of the latter, the former is now untouchable and unquestionable
Nobody says Israel cannot be criticised. It’s when people blame Jews in general for what Israel is doing, as if the Jewish community is responsibe for israel’s actions, that’s ‘political antisemitism’.
This conflation of backing the idea of a Jewish homeland, which probably most Jews do, and supporting the actions of the current Jewish political regime, which many Jews do not, is where this racism is getting a foothold to grow in the Labour Party.
Really? Nobody?
Quick reminder that polling shows labour members are far less anti semitic than in 2015. The idea that anti semitism is growing in the party is just false.
Yes Dobba. Nobody.