How Britain’s Labor Became the Party of Left-Wing Anti-Semitism https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/politics-current-affairs/2016/11/how-britains-labor-became-the-party-of-left-wing-anti-semitism/

November 2, 2016 | Douglas Murray
About the author: Douglas Murray is an associate editor at the Spectator and author of, most recently, The War on the West

Since Jeremy Corbyn—a man who has expressed his admiration for Hamas, Hizballah, and Bashar al-Assad—became leader of the Labor party, anti-Semitic comments from the party’s politicians have become a dime a dozen. Douglas Murray comments:

There are, it is true, routine pro-forma denunciations of anti-Semitism from Jeremy Corbyn and his circle. But even these betray a belligerent refusal to face the problem. When invited to condemn anti-Semitism, the Corbynistas indignantly state (as Corbyn did himself last December), “We mustn’t tolerate anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or any form of racism.” Often it is also responded to (as it is every time by Corbyn) with the blanket assertion that the individual in question has spent “all his life” fighting racism.

Several things are striking about these phrases and their emphases. The first is that it remains well-nigh impossible to get Corbyn or any of his intimates to condemn anti-Semitism without equivocation. They are comfortable condemning it only if they can include it alongside a number of what are for them more popular maladies. For decades “anti-racism” has become one of the only fuels left with which to propel indignant leftists and provide them with a sense of purpose in an age of increasing consensus. They present British society, against most evidence, as an outrageously racist place where minorities are routinely oppressed and attacked and in which anti-racism must therefore be a central component.

Even more striking is that insertion of “Islamophobia.” Corbyn-supporting journalists like the Guardian’s Owen Jones spent the early part of this year insisting that if the party were to set up an inquiry into anti-Semitism, it must also set one up into Islamophobia. Their aim is to distract from the serious charges against themselves by setting off firecrackers elsewhere. Indeed, it has become a staple of Corbynista politics that British Muslims are the new Jews. But the Jews remain the Jews and increasingly sense they are being isolated and fixed upon as an ideological scapegoat. . . .

At the 2015 election, a majority of British Jews for the first time voted Conservative. It seems unlikely that this political migration will be reversed under the leadership of a man whose career has been spent baiting Jews in all ways available to him, and who is making Britain safe for open anti-Semitism for the first time since the Victorian era.

Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/party-left-wing-anti-semitism/