[Political Interest]

If it is anti-semitic to criticise Israel then there is a huge problem. Because the effective implication of this logic is that given that anti-semitism is a moral wrong, and criticising Israel is anti-semitic, then criticising Israel becomes a moral wrong.

In other words Israel is rendered beyond criticism. Should Israel just be allowed to do whatever it pleases and anything else would be anti-semitic?

This is all very well when Israel is a neutral country in some far flung corner of the world but it isn't. It is a country in a very sensitive part of the world, with a very sensitive history and contemporary political situation. If criticising Israel over Operation Cast Lead or it's refusal to withdraw the West Bank is anti-semitism then it means Israel has a moral blank cheque to do whatever it wants.

[skinster]

The antisemitism accusations are old and boring, it's all Israel has, but thankfully don't work anymore, since nowadays (most) people have zero problem with calling Israel out for its fascism.

Still, people like Layman cheapen actual antisemitism. SAD!

[ingliz]

Labour members who serve Israel?

Blairite red tories serving themselves.

[Political Interest]

The antisemitism accusations are old and boring, it's all Israel has, but thankfully don't work anymore, since nowadays (most) people have zero problem with calling Israel out for its fascism.

Still, people like Layman cheapen actual antisemitism. SAD!

And where that anti-semitism is real it must be fought resolutely with all our hearts. But to stop Israel from performing its excesses and extremism is fighting anti-semitism because Zionist extremism is a major cause of anti-semitism.

[layman]

Why don’t people read. Criticisms of Israel are explicitly allowed.

What’s actually old @skinster is this Israel/Zionist/Jew conspiracy shit. That labour mps are not just pro Israel but working for them. You always peddle this crap, smirking at decky s “it’s mossad” theory for everything. You may not be an anti Semite as such but you cross right into that grey area your messiah is working to define.

@ingliz being red tories or whatever is besides the point. You are unusually off the mark there.

[skinster]

What’s actually old @skinster is this Israel/Zionist/Jew conspiracy shit. That labour mps are not just pro Israel but working for them. You always peddle this crap, smirking at decky s “it’s mossad” theory for everything. You may not be an anti Semite as such but you cross right into that grey area your messiah is working to define.

Yeah it's a big surprise that the UK and US and other places have Israel lobbies whose job it is, to serve Israeli interests. AIPAC don't exist either.

When politicians serve other states over literally their own party, it's me that's being a jerk for stating who these people are working for. Better not, lest I make idiots on the internet cry.

Whatever grey area you've put me in, it can eat my ass.

[ingliz]

being red tories or whatever is besides the point

I beg to differ.

The 'antisemitism definition' is just another stick to beat Corbyn.

The red tories are knowingly playing on the ignorance of the tabloid reading public, who still see Israel as the plucky little underdog and not the racist endeavour it is, as part of their strategy to keep their natural bedfellows, the Tories, in government.

[Beren]

decky s “it’s mossad” theory

There's always 50% chance of Decky's Mossad-bashing being actually right, because it's the Russians otherwise - in the UK at least.

[noemon]

Labour members who serve Israel?

This is the kind of talk is precisely what it is referring too. It’s classic anti semitism.

Imagine what skinster would say if people said the same about Muslim labour members.

People do say that every day in here, and those people include Ter, that Muslims are a separate entity, that they can not be integrated, that they serve Islam instead of their own countries, that they are a fifth column, PoFo zionists say that in here every single day, they say that for the London Labour Mayor and the funny thing is that they say that without any Muslim MP provoking anything, but just by merely existing. Hodge has insulted her own party leader as a "racist antisemite" just because he spoke for Palestine!!!! Can you imagine the outrage if Muslim MP's called people speaking up for Yemen as racist Islamophobes? And demanded that it should be made illegal to speak up for Yemen because it insults the Saudi collective entity? Can you imagine the outrage if Muslims demanded that criticising their countries for their human rights records be made illegal? Can you imagine the outrage if they demanded that it be made illegal to call them out as serving their own countries for demanding precisely those things? There would be 100 threads with the entire zionist chorus shouting that Muslims only care for Muslims. Hodge's comments are an utter disgrace, and they do indeed only serve Israel's most right-wing government, trying to make it illegal to state the obvious is beyond the....beyond.

That labour mps are not just pro Israel but working for them.

How is Hodge not serving Israel when she says in the OP that speaking up for Palestine should be defined as "antisemitism"? the few others that are being carried along the ride are Red tories hating on Corbyn and finding yet another stick to beat him with as they tried already with various other methods to take him down. Funny that the Tories have not adopted any definition of "antisemitism" but nobody cares, neither the Labour MP's, nor Hodge, nor the Jewish organisations that are speaking against Corbyn, nor our resident zionists. They are beating up a guy for doing more against antisemitism than the ruling party which is doing absolutely nothing about it.

[skinster]

New assault on Corbyn aims to ban criticism of Israel in Labour
A leading pro-Israel lawmaker is being investigated by the Labour Party for allegedly slandering Jeremy Corbyn as a “fucking anti-Semite,” The Electronic Intifada can reveal.

A Labour source said on Friday that following receipt of a third party complaint, a notice of investigation into “alleged abusive behavior” has been sent to Margaret Hodge.

But the source said that Hodge would not be suspended during the investigation.

Margaret Hodge’s office did not answer a call, and she did not immediately reply to emails requesting comment.

The news came as the Parliamentary Labour Party is once again in a state of near civil war over the manufactured “anti-Semitism crisis” this week.

Hodge, a former minister under Tony Blair, had on Tuesday confronted Labour leader Corbyn, reportedly attacking him as “a fucking anti-Semite and racist.”

Writing in The Guardian on Wednesday, Hodge confirmed she had “confronted” Corbyn, but did not repeat the expletives attributed to her by a fellow lawmaker.

She did, however, claim that Corbyn “is now perceived by many as an anti-Semite.”

Corbyn’s spokespeople responded that “action will be taken” against Hodge, who has reportedly violated Labour rules on acceptable behavior.

Hodge’s attack was prompted by a new Labour code of conduct against anti-Semitism, which was formally adopted by the party’s ruling national executive on Tuesday.

While the new rules adopt large parts of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s controversial definition of anti-Semitism, it removed one clause which would have barred criticism of Israel’s racist policies and Zionist state ideology.

The IHRA document includes “claiming that the State of Israel is a racist endeavor” as an example of anti-Semitism.

This could be used to ban criticism of a host of Israeli policies such as barring the return of Palestinian refugees solely because they are not Jewish, or the new “nation-state” legislation that has been widely condemned for enshrining elements of apartheid into constitutional law.

Israel lobby groups have mounted a major campaign for governments and institutions around the world to adopt the IHRA definition.

Racists accuse anti-racists of racism
Adoption of the clause barring criticism of Israeli racism into Labour’s rule book would have a serious chilling effect on Palestine solidarity activism by party members.

It is the rejection of this clause which Hodge and other right-wing and pro-Israel Labour lawmakers are up in arms about.

In effect, the party’s pro-Israel and anti-Corbyn lawmakers are arguing that it is racist to – accurately – describe Israel as racist.

Ironically, the furore comes in the same week that the Israeli parliament passed a new basic law formally enshrining Israel as a nation-state for Jews alone, removing Arabic as an official language and encouraging “Jewish settlement” on stolen Palestinian land “as a national value.”

A supporter of Labour Friends of Israel, Hodge was responsible for triggering the failed 2016 coup attempt against Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.

Hodge submitted a motion of no-confidence in Corbyn, which led to a leadership contest that Corbyn ultimately won with an increased mandate.

Corbyn’s threat to take action against Hodge for her reported verbal assault was met with fury by the right wing of the Labour Party – who backed Hodge’s attack on their own leader.

Israel lobby groups have also piled in, with the Jewish Labour Movement offering Hodge “full solidarity.”

The JLM acts in close alliance with the state of Israel and is led by a former Israeli embassy officer. Its director has privately admitted to working closely with an exposed Israeli embassy spy.

JLM has been at the forefront of attempts to portray the Labour Party under Corbyn as a hive of anti-Semitism.

JLM officer and former local councillor Adam Langleben wrote in The Times of Israel this week that Labour’s failure to fully adopt the Israel lobby’s preferred definition of anti-Semitism in its code of conduct meant that his own party was now “institutionally racist.”

Lawmaker Joan Ryan, chair of Labour Friends of Israel, said she was “appalled” by the new code of conduct, claiming it helps those who want to “demonize and delegitimize the state of Israel.”

Ryan’s own conduct however illustrates the dangers of conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. In 2017, an undercover Al Jazeera documentary exposed how Ryan fabricated allegations of anti-Semitism against a party member who had questioned Labour Friends of Israel’s position on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

On Thursday, Tony Blair weighed in, telling the BBC’s Newsnight program that it was a “disastrous move” for Labour not to fully adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

“I’m afraid I can understand the anger of much of the Jewish community and I sympathize with it,” the former prime minister said.

Blair added that it would be “crazy” for the party to proceed with disciplinary action against Hodge.

Sabotage
Over the weekend, a new book by a former Labour staffer exposed details of the lengths to which Labour’s right-wing establishment has tried to sabotage Corbyn from within.

Tom Baldwin, a former director of communications, revealed that during last year’s general election, Labour campaign chiefs secretly refused to run social media adverts designed by Corbyn’s leadership team, which had been aimed at increasing voter registration.

Rather than say no to their party leader, they instead ran the messages as Facebook “targeted” advertising, so that only Corbyn and his inner circle of left-wing activists would see them.

“Labour Party officials became so good at targeting Facebook ads, they were able to deceive Jeremy Corbyn about the kind of campaign they were running,” Baldwin reportedly writes. “If it was there for them, they thought it must be there for everyone. It wasn’t. That’s how targeted ads can work.”

The Labour right and Israel lobby groups have run a sustained campaign of sabotage against Corbyn.

This included undermining the party leader during the 2017 election and suggesting to voters that Labour was not a “credible party of government.”

Corbyn’s response to such open disloyalty has often been characterized by attempts at appeasement that have only served to embolden the attacks.

Racist endeavor
On Monday, a majority of Labour MPs voted against the new code of conduct.

But the lawmakers do not have the final say, with the National Executive Committee responsible for deciding Labour’s rule book. The vote was intended to pressure the NEC to scrap the new code, but it appears not to have worked.

In a letter addressing Labour lawmakers ahead of their Monday meeting, Labour’s general secretary Jennie Formby defended the new code of conduct,

“The only one of the IHRA examples … that is not quoted or explicitly referenced in our code deals with claims about the state of Israel being a ‘racist endeavor,’” Formby wrote in the letter obtained by The Electronic Intifada.

She explained that the “the wording in the IHRA example is open to different interpretations and runs the risk of prohibiting legitimate criticism of Israel.”

“Palestinians have as much right as any other people to define the discrimination they have experienced as racism, and we cannot uphold one set of rights by infringing another,” Formby added.

Left-wing national executive member Darren Williams wrote on Facebook after the ruling body met on Tuesday that the National Executive Committee had confirmed adoption of the code of conduct but “agreed to reopen discussions with Jewish organizations regarding their concerns.”

In a Facebook discussion, Williams wrote that inclusion of the “racist endeavor” clause would have been “an unacceptable curtailment of legitimate criticism of Israel and it’s to the credit of those who drew up the party’s code of conduct that it was consciously excluded.”

Meanwhile, 40 Jewish organizations from around the world urged institutions like the Labour Party to reject the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

In an open letter, they condemned the IHRA definition as being worded to “intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism, as a means to suppress the former.”

Groups signing onto the statement include Jewish Voice for Peace, the Jewish Socialists Group and Independent Jewish Voices.

Also supporting it is Jewish Voice for Labour.

The left-wing group has cautiously welcomed the new code of conduct, while warning that the IHRA definition “has never had unanimous support” among British Jews, is “badly drafted and confusing” and has been used to prevent criticisms of Israel.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/as ... ael-labour

[Hong Wu]

[noemon]

@Hong Wu

You are one of those people here:

People do say that every day in here, and those people include Ter, that Muslims are a separate entity, that they can not be integrated, that they serve Islam instead of their own countries, that they are a fifth column, PoFo zionists say that in here every single day, they say that for the London Labour Mayor and the funny thing is that they say that without any Muslim MP provoking anything, but just by merely existing. Hodge has insulted her own party leader as a "racist antisemite" just because he spoke for Palestine!!!! Can you imagine the outrage if Muslim MP's called people speaking up for Yemen as racist Islamophobes? And demanded that it should be made illegal to speak up for Yemen because it insults the Saudi collective entity? Can you imagine the outrage if Muslims demanded that criticising their countries for their human rights records be made illegal? Can you imagine the outrage if they demanded that it be made illegal to call them out as serving their own countries for demanding precisely those things? There would be 100 threads with the entire zionist chorus shouting that Muslims only care for Muslims.

[skinster]

[Beren]

His opponents in Labour would destroy the party rather than have Corbyn as PM, I wouldn't sympathise with Corbyn that much if his enemies weren't so despicable. And what if "anti-Semitism" wins? Will they label their voters or nation as "anti-Semitic"? Will it be an "anti-Semitic" era?

[danholo]

Why are people misreading this and getting triggered?!

You are NOT an anti-Semite for criticizing Israel. The OP instead states that it COULD be anti-Semitism fueling criticism but not explicitly.

Don't get so triggered, PoFopals.

[Ter]

People do say that every day in here, and those people include Ter, that Muslims are a separate entity, that they can not be integrated, that they serve Islam instead of their own countries, that they are a fifth column

Yes indeed, they would put their Islam before anything else.
And since the Muslims became a bigger minority in Europe, the number of attacks on Jews in Europe has increased. Yes, I am against massive Muslim immigration into Europe.
And thanks for singling me out
The question is now, am I allowed to say that or not ?

[noemon]

Yes indeed, they would put their Islam before anything else.
And since the Muslims became a bigger minority in Europe, the number of attacks on Jews in Europe has increased. Yes, I am against massive Muslim immigration into Europe.
And thanks for singling me out
The question is now, am I allowed to say that or not ?

You have always been allowed to say anything you like Ter, but also get called out on it, soon enough zionists will make it illegal for you to be able to say such things however because once it has been made illegal to do it to Zionists you can bet your breakfast that it will be made illegal to do it to Islamists, that is call them out as supporting their own causes more than the countries they live in. One would have expected yourself to stand up to such blatant violations of free speech.

[Hong Wu]

Noemon Edit: Rule 16, posing as a victim for having a three-word off-topic sentence removed.

I think trying to split hairs about whether these Jews are being attacked for being Israelis or for being Jews, when I don't know, maybe 99% of Israel's population who are by definition not Arabs are therefore Jews, is getting a little semantic. But even moreso it goes back to the general grievance of Palestine's population with the Israelis.

The internet says that Palestinians grew their population 8-fold since 1948 and their current rate of growth appears to be beyond that factor as well. They are following a simple Haditha strategy where you try to outbreed your enemies. In a very general sense, I don't think the world can afford to legitimize the outbreeding strategy, so they should not be given any more land.

Regarding the freedom of speech issue, I've had my speech curtailed so many times (even in the US) that I don't really believe it exists and so I'm not really interested in discussing it besides to point out that if you do believe it does/should exist, you should let everyone have it. From what I've seen of pro-Palestinian groups, they tend to fall near the AntiFA spectrum of people who don't believe in freedom of speech, so yeah. Some said that talking in favor of Israeli was violence and now they can't criticize Israel anymore, this is MFW:

[Hong Wu]

Noemon Edit: Rule 16 Yellow Card for Ignoring Numerous Warnings.

[noemon]

Regarding the freedom of speech issue, I've had my speech curtailed so many times (even in the US) that I don't really believe it exists and so I'm not really interested in discussing it besides to point out that if you do believe it does/should exist, you should let everyone have it. From what I've seen of pro-Palestinian groups, they tend to fall near the AntiFA spectrum of people who don't believe in freedom of speech, so yeah. Some said that talking in favor of Israeli was violence and now they can't criticize Israel anymore, this is MFW:

So to make this clear, you support censoring everyone who supports Palestine and you support putting people in prison for saying that X group cares more about its own country instead of the country that he is a citizen of. Cool, we shall see how you put that in practise with Muslims in here in the future and hold you up to it.