http://themilitant.com/2016/8020/802050.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 20 May 23, 2016
(special feature article, commentary)
The stakes in UK debate on Jew-hatred in
Labour Party
BY JONATHAN SILBERMAN
LONDON — A rise of Jew-hatred as the capitalist crisis deepens, combined
with years of the left’s repetition of anti-Semitic slander — often
under the guise of supporting the Palestinian struggle — is fueling
turmoil in the British Labour Party.
Ken Livingstone — a member of the party’s executive and former London
mayor — was suspended from Labour April 28 for “bringing the party into
disrepute” through anti-Semitic remarks. Also suspended is Labour MP Naz
Shah. Some 50 Labour members have been disciplined, according to press
reports.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn declared that his party opposes “tolerating
anti-Semitism in any form.” He has set up an investigation, but claims
there is no crisis. Len McCluskey, leader of the Unite trade union,
agreed, attacking what he called a “cynical attempt to manipulate
anti-Semitism for political aims.” Left-wing papers, including Morning
Star, Socialist Worker and Socialist, have joined the denial chorus.
“Ever since Jeremy Corbyn got elected,” Livingstone said April 28, “the
media whip up all these issues, which are side-issues.”
Corbyn’s political opponents, both inside the Labour Party and in other
bourgeois parties, are taking this opportunity to go after him. And
Jew-hatred within the ruling class in Britain is not confined to the
Labour Party.
But anti-Semitism is no “side issue.” And Labour’s turmoil is not the
product of a smear campaign, but of its toleration over years of
anti-Semitic slanders and the promotion of open Jew-haters, along with
demonization of Israel and campaigns for Israel’s destruction.
Shah shared a Facebook posting in 2014 that read, “Solution for
Israel-Palestine Conflict — Relocate Israel into United States.” The
posting stated the “transportation cost” would be less than three years’
worth of Washington’s support for Israeli defense spending.
Shah was a victim of a “well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby,”
Livingstone claimed. While saying the Facebook post was “over the top,”
he added that “a real anti-Semite doesn’t just hate the Jews in Israel,
they hate their Jewish neighbors” in London.
‘Jewish money’ slander
Last October, Labour MP Gerald Kaufman said that “Jewish money, Jewish
donations” were responsible for the UK government’s Israel policy. And
prominent left Labour MP Tam Dalyell claimed in 2003 that the UK’s
leading role in the Iraq war was due to the influence of a “Jewish
cabal” over the government.
The association of Jews and money and alleged Jewish conspiracies are
the stock-in-trade slander of anti-Semites.
The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign reinforces
that lie today — regardless of the intentions of those who participate
in it — through its protests targeting stores whose owners are Jewish,
allegedly for their support of Israel. To cover their anti-Semitism they
often say “Zionist” and “Zio” when what they really mean is “Jew.”
Labour Party leaders like Corbyn have often embraced leaders of Hamas,
who claim to speak in the name of the Palestinian people. The Hamas
government of Gaza calls for the destruction of Israel, a stance echoed
by much of the left.
“Anyone who has a knife, a club, a weapon, or a car, yet does not use it
to run over a Jew or a settler, and does not use it to kill dozens of
Zionists, does not belong to Palestine,” declared Hamas spokesperson
Fawzi Barhoum in August 2014.
Anti-Semitism under the pretext of support to the Palestinian struggle
undermines the Palestinian fight for national rights, including the
fight for a viable and contiguous Palestine.
‘Anti-Zionist’: code for anti-Jew
Livingstone says he is not anti-Semitic but “anti-Zionist.” He told the
BBC anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitic because Hitler “was supporting
Zionism … before he went mad and ended up killing 6 million Jews.”
The Holocaust was not the result of Hitler going mad, but of calculated
moves to scapegoat the Jews for the crisis of capitalism and to destroy
the workers movement in Germany.
Equating “Zionists” with Nazis has been a feature of Livingstone’s
politics. When mayor of London he told a Jewish reporter that he was
acting like a “concentration camp guard.” When he was leader of the
Greater London Council in 1981 and editor of Labour Herald, the
publication carried a cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Menachem
Begin as a Nazi.
Jew hatred is a product of capitalism in decay. Its ultimate purpose is
to divert workers from a united militant struggle by promoting the
poisonous lie that the problem is not capitalism, but evil Jewish
capitalists. And it goes hand in hand with fascism, which proclaims that
the solution is not internationalism and workers taking power and
replacing the dictatorship of capital through revolutionary struggle,
but “national socialism,” the polar opposite of the course fought for by
communists since the time of Marx and Engels.
As the worldwide capitalist crisis deepens, Jew-hatred will continue to
erupt. Class-conscious workers must oppose it everywhere it rears its head.
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