May 21, 2019 04:25 AM
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/...eps-flying
EXCERPT: . . . So if there were indeed a problem of “institutional anti-semitism” within the Labour Party, given my own family’s traumatic history at the hands of anti-semitic abuse, I’d be the first to speak out. [...] And then there are the twin elephants in the room: Israel and zionism. Growing up, my generation learned that Israel was courageous and plucky — there was something deeply admirable about its rugged self-sufficiency. It was the heroic David against the Arab Goliath, that sought to push its gallant inhabitants — the Palestinians were never mentioned — into the sea.
[...] Then came the Six Day War, and in its wake the land appropriations, the expanding settlements and the evictions. For some of us, certainly those on the left side of politics, the golden ideal started to tarnish. People began talking about Palestinians and their rights, or lack of them. The mask of the gallant David was starting to slip. For many Jewish families, however, Israel was and remains an ideal — something larger in idea form than it is in reality. Something magnificent. And if, as it turns out, it has its faults and its flaws it’s because its back is forever against the wall.
[...] I don’t need to point out to this newspaper’s readers that almost certainly none of those who accuse Jeremy Corbyn or the Labour Party of personal or institutional anti-semitism believe a single word of it. We know that criticism of expansionist zionism and anti-semitism have been manipulatively conflated. We also know that there’s a suspicious trail of influence and money behind the MPs who want Corbyn’s scalp and the small army of faceless people conjuring mountains out of molehills.
What I think needs some understanding, however, is why it is that many good people apparently choose to believe what are largely spurious accusations. Quite simply, it is due to decades and centuries of very real anti-semitism that have left them predisposed to do so — an emotion- trauma- and fear-driven belief system that often seems to be quite impervious to rational argument or evidence. And this is why the reaction is to form the wagons into a circle. And because accusations of anti-semitism appear to gain more traction than most other attacks on the Labour left — something that our opponents know only too well — they’re not likely to end any time soon. (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: . . . So if there were indeed a problem of “institutional anti-semitism” within the Labour Party, given my own family’s traumatic history at the hands of anti-semitic abuse, I’d be the first to speak out. [...] And then there are the twin elephants in the room: Israel and zionism. Growing up, my generation learned that Israel was courageous and plucky — there was something deeply admirable about its rugged self-sufficiency. It was the heroic David against the Arab Goliath, that sought to push its gallant inhabitants — the Palestinians were never mentioned — into the sea.
[...] Then came the Six Day War, and in its wake the land appropriations, the expanding settlements and the evictions. For some of us, certainly those on the left side of politics, the golden ideal started to tarnish. People began talking about Palestinians and their rights, or lack of them. The mask of the gallant David was starting to slip. For many Jewish families, however, Israel was and remains an ideal — something larger in idea form than it is in reality. Something magnificent. And if, as it turns out, it has its faults and its flaws it’s because its back is forever against the wall.
[...] I don’t need to point out to this newspaper’s readers that almost certainly none of those who accuse Jeremy Corbyn or the Labour Party of personal or institutional anti-semitism believe a single word of it. We know that criticism of expansionist zionism and anti-semitism have been manipulatively conflated. We also know that there’s a suspicious trail of influence and money behind the MPs who want Corbyn’s scalp and the small army of faceless people conjuring mountains out of molehills.
What I think needs some understanding, however, is why it is that many good people apparently choose to believe what are largely spurious accusations. Quite simply, it is due to decades and centuries of very real anti-semitism that have left them predisposed to do so — an emotion- trauma- and fear-driven belief system that often seems to be quite impervious to rational argument or evidence. And this is why the reaction is to form the wagons into a circle. And because accusations of anti-semitism appear to gain more traction than most other attacks on the Labour left — something that our opponents know only too well — they’re not likely to end any time soon. (MORE - details)
