In the light of Corbyn's comments this week, I've summed up the way charges of antisemitism against him relied overwhelmingly on the conflation of support for Palestinian rights with bigotry against Jewish people, following an international template.
jacobin.com
jacobin.com
This isn't just a British story: groups like AIPAC have targeted Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar with false charges of antisemitism, but they also campaigned this week to unseat a liberal Jewish congressman, Andy Levin, because he supports the right of Palestine to exist.
John Ware's rejection of Palestinian rights is so extreme that he wants to exclude anyone who tells the truth about their experience in 1947β48 from the mainstream political process. This is the man the BBC assigned to ask "Is Labour Antisemitic?", with predictable results.
The controversy the British media dubbed "wreathgate", erasing the victims of an Israeli bomb attack in Tunisia, was certainly a "defining moment"βit was the point at which so many of Corbyn's critics revealed their bigoted view of Palestinians in full effect.
The Labour councillor who suggested Omar Barghouti was a threat to the safety of British Jews, purely because Priti Patel's Home Office had delayed issuing his visa, popped up again this week to say Corbyn was unfit to be a Labour MP. What did Groucho Marx say about clubs again?
An important point to stress: Israel happens to be an important line of attack, for various reasons. But it's not the main cause of hostility to left forces in Europe or North America from establishment liberals and conservatives alikeβtheir whole agenda is the source of that.
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