In the latest evidence that the British Labor party’s problem is one of anti-Semitism rather than criticism of Israel, a recording surfaced Monday night of a party official, Peter Willsman, delivering a tirade about Jews at a meeting of its executive committee. Helen Lewis examines his words:
Importantly, there is no record of [the party leader Jeremy] Corbyn intervening to stop Willsman fulminating about how Jewish “Trump fanatics” were spreading false claims of anti-Semitism, or criticizing the 68 rabbis who signed an open letter saying that the party had a problem. . . .
[T]he “Trump fanatic” comment is typical of the pro-Corbyn memes which circulate on social media and are given impetus through pro-Corbyn websites. . . . Put simply, for sites such as these, the default assumption is that criticism of Corbyn is motivated by a “centrist” or “Blairite” agenda—or perhaps even by actual right-wingers. . . . Corbyn’s team, and Corbyn himself, have encouraged this narrative: that criticism is never valid, can never be valid, because it is never motivated by anything other than knee-jerk opposition to Corbyn’s socialist program. This line of thinking is, frankly, conspiracist. We also know where it ends: with one Labor councilor wondering if there is a “Mossad-assisted campaign to prevent the election of a Labor government pledged to recognize Palestine as a state” and another hosting Facebook posts under his name about “blood-drinking Jews.” . . .
Corbyn—a lifelong anti-racist activist and campaigner against apartheid—seems unable to recognize that he might have a blind spot, even when hundreds of members of a community try to tell him so. Some of his supporters, meanwhile, appear to want an impossible standard of proof before they will acknowledge the existence of anti-Semitism in the party. A higher standard of proof than posts about blood-drinking Jews. . . .
There is nothing left to say on Labor’s anti-Semitism row. If you don’t think there is a problem by this point, then surely nothing can change your mind. In fact, you are the problem.
Read more on New Statesman: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/07/jeremy-corbyn-and-anti-semitism-there-anything-left-say