Antisemitism and contemporary politics

[WOM]

not just Chomsky though is it? theres an attempt to frame all (.....) criticism of Israel as anti-semitic- see thread

That's been SOP - and successfully so - for so long that it's virtually impossible to have a constructive discussion about it. And that's by design.

[Lucy Waterman]

RR is Jewish, isn't she? Don't know what her surname has to do with it.

[Duncan Gardner]

RR is Jewish, isn't she? Don't know what her surname has to do with it

Maybe she's Irish as well as Jewish?

Ideally people should Yiddishify their names before commenting. So I'm Velvel To'am (thanks Wiki)

Meanwhile, Dudley Council on "Israel as racist endeavor"

[MsD]

She accused me of 'bully a campaigner against anti-Semitism' this morning, which is a bit rich. Given that the campaigner in question was Zoe Kemp, who as well as 'jokingly' repeating called for crowdfunding to assassinate Corbyn, has openly referred to wanting to kill him herself, has had to be removed from premises for screaming abuse at him, and who produced charming Fuck Corbyn mugs for Christmas.

[Lucy Waterman]

Is it racist of me to laugh at the idea of all of those statements being made in a Black Country accent?

[ursus arctos]

She seems nice

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

There seems to be a semi-cyclical thing where a prominent jewish person makes a clumsy intervention then gets swarmed with replies - some of which are telling them they're wrong, lying, mistaken a tory etc and some of which are grossly antisemitic and clearly - to the person making the intervention - justify it.

Neither side is exactly covering themselves in glory or indeed working towards any position of understanding engagement with one another.

The labour antisemitism stuff is, at its core motivated by Corbyn's history of Palestinian solidarity, but, equally, some of the stuff churned up from Corbyn's past and certain figures on the left has been pretty fucking dodgy and needed a better response. It's true that there's a double standard but i don't care. The left should hold itself to a better standard of anti-racism than the right and it should embrace that.

Both the weaponisation of antisemitism by the right and the semi-deifiication of Corbyn by some labour supporters has prevented any meaningful challenge to that - and indeed any challenge to the antisemitic tendencies on the left that Corbyn has frequently indulged. And there's a lot of left-leaning Jewish people who are never going to supporting labour under Corbyn because of this. And loads of Jewish people within the labour movement get called collaborators by "philosemites" and right-wingers who are, at the same time, all too willing to indulge racism when it's directed at others.

This is indicative of that - I don't know why anyone is particularly interested in what the person who does maths on Countdown has to say about Corbyn but somehow a shouting-match dominates left discourse. And like there's clearly a class of people in Labour for whom drawing the online opprobrium of "centrists" is their main/only pretension to radicalism. Even when they're wrong, even when they're implicitly encouraging anti-semites.

[johnr]

You make some good points, but

This is indicative of that - I don't know why anyone is particularly interested in what the person who does maths on Countdown has to say about Corbyn but somehow a shouting-match dominates left discourse. And like there's clearly a class of people in Labour for whom drawing the online opprobrium of "centrists" is their main/only pretension to radicalism. Even when they're wrong, even when they're implicitly encouraging anti-semites.

She does do maths on Countdown (as I glibly underplayed a page or so back). She also appears on various other TV shows, has a reasonably high public profile, and was on Channel 4 News last night (saying 'I don't look like a typical Jew', for what it's worth). People are vehemently expressing disagreement with her publicly-stated views, which they see as inflammatory and wrong. I can't see another way to respond (except, I guess, ignore, but then untruths go unchallenged - which may be OK for anonymous trolls, but not a public figure), and I can't see one of her 'opponents' getting a free pass via a cosy chat with Krishnan Guru-Murthy either.

[johnr]

Another cosy chat this morning, this time with Lorraine Kelly on ITV - apparently Rachel is discussing how she has stood up to the anti-semitic abuse from the left. I doubt if Lorraine will be asking Rachel if her previous conflation of 'Israel' with 'Jewish' is in breach of the IHRA definition or not - nor what 'looking Jewish' is like - so it's probably up to a few people to disagree with her on social media again. It's the only outlet there is.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

With the caveat that I haven't properly dug into Riley's views, but from a quick twitter search she has only ever mentioned Israel in the context of complaining about people sending her unsolicited stuff about Israel. Most of her references to Zionism are pushing a more nuanced understanding of the term than "uncritically support the displacement of Palestinians".

The impression I get from my brief skim is that, far from being a right-wing anti-Corbyn die-hard, she's a sort of liberal zionist who, in general, is not that interested in Israel but defaults to supporting its right to exist as a jewish state. I know a few Jewish people who hold similar views, and, I know my non-zionist Jewish pals get increasingly frustrated with liberal zionism, but also it's incredibly weird to see someone whose politics on Israel broadly reflect the current political stance of the Labour Front bench (two-state solution, opposed to the current government) be transformed into this right-wing bogey-figure idk.

[ad hoc]

She doesn't seem especially critical of Israel. I mean people don;t have to be critical of it, but if people bring it up it would be nice to know that they have actually thought about the occupation critically.

[johnr]

With the caveat that I haven't properly dug into Riley's views, but from a quick twitter search she has only ever mentioned Israel in the context of complaining about people sending her unsolicited stuff about Israel. Most of her references to Zionism are pushing a more nuanced understanding of the term than "uncritically support the displacement of Palestinians".

The impression I get from my brief skim is that, far from being a right-wing anti-Corbyn die-hard, she's a sort of liberal zionist who, in general, is not that interested in Israel but defaults to supporting its right to exist as a jewish state. I know a few Jewish people who hold similar views, and, I know my non-zionist Jewish pals get increasingly frustrated with liberal zionism, but also it's incredibly weird to see someone whose politics on Israel broadly reflect the current political stance of the Labour Front bench (two-state solution, opposed to the current government) be transformed into this right-wing bogey-figure idk.

Again, fair points - though I think that it's not that shes being 'transformed' by anybody; she is explicitly attacking various left figures - Corbyn, Chomsky, etc - whilst approvingly retweeting and engaging with David Collier, a man who - to take one example - earlier on today was asserting that abour will introduce the gulags. Really.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

So where are we after three weeks of heated debate?

As I posted earlier, there are legitimate(-ish) reasons to call-out both Corbyn and Chomsky on enabling antisemitism, but more importantly, how does this stuff actually impact a) Jewish people - both those who support and those criticial of corbyn b) Palestinians and c) the electoral chances of the labour party?

I don't think a thousand people telling Rachel Riley her politics are bad really helps any of those - it simply entrenches an incredibly toxic debate that, it seems fairly clear to me, enables antisemites (and misogynists) on the left to abuse people.

I'm not necessarily saying people need to rise above disingenuous criticism (particularly some of the more slanderous allegations against left-wing jews), but I think it's probably worth some Labour supporters that there are quite a lot of Jewish people they'd have a lot in common politically with who would never vote for corbyn, maybe acknowledging that, and working from there.

[ad hoc]

Hang on, what are we talking about now? Are we talking about the issue of antisemitism in the UK, or the occupation. Your post isn't clear. I've been spending a long time trying very hard not to conflate the two, and I think it is important not to. Both are very important issues, but when it comes down to it, the occupation is the one of those issues that is killing and brutalising people, under which people are being killed purely because of their race, on a daily basis. This is not to diminish the problem of antisemitism on the left in UK politics, nor to try and downplay the effect on those affected by it, but of the two separate issues the occupation is certainly the more serious. It is racially motivated mass murder.

[Lucy Waterman]

I don't know whether it has an effect on c), but vociferously attacking someone like RR is a bad look for Corbyn supporters.

As Emily T seems to have worked out: https://twitter.com/EmilyThornberry/...51725610856450

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Hang on, what are we talking about now? Are we talking about the issue of antisemitism in the UK, or the occupation. Your post isn't clear. I've been spending a long time trying very hard not to conflate the two, and I think it is important not to. Both are very important issues, but when it comes down to it, the occupation is the one of those issues that is killing and brutalising people, under which people are being killed purely because of their race, on a daily basis. This is not to diminish the problem of antisemitism on the left in UK politics, nor to try and downplay the effect on those affected by it, but of the two separate issues the occupation is certainly the more serious. It is racially motivated mass murder.

Sorry, I agree with that but I'm not sure how it relates to my post.

[ad hoc]

It was the juxtaposition of point (b) in your list of people impacted. I couldn't really work out what we were now talking about, and, indeed, whether we talking about both issues.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

It was the juxtaposition of point (b) in your list of people impacted. I couldn't really work out what we were now talking about, and, indeed, whether we talking about both issues.

I think the occupation is bad; I support BDS and the principle of Palestinian resistance and self-defence. I dunno whether shouting someone who does sums on TV about Israel constitutes a meaningful form of solidarity especially when she hasn't really mentioned Israel.

The only reason to shout about Israel at Rachel Riley is to position her criticism being because she is a zionist or whatever, something that has far more to do with trying to pigeonhole every critic of Corbyn as anti-Palestinian - and hence illegitimate - than it does about any sort of meaningful support for Palestine. Does this make sense?

[ad hoc]

I only know what has been on this thread (and the interview on C4), and the only person i have heard mention Israel is her, and when Krishnan Guru-Murthy actually asked her a question about Israel (after she brought it up), she basically said something pathetic like "I don't want people on any side to be killed". I don;t know - if people have been shouting at her about Israel then I agree with you, but as I say, from where I watch, she brought Israel into the conversation. (and if she did she needs to have a slightly more thought out position on it than what she seems to have)

[Nefertiti2]

You seem to show a remarkable generosity to Rachel Riley here that was missing from say your criticisms of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

[Lang Spoon]

https://mobile.twitter.com/libcomorg/status/1082620167732019200.This thread seems pretty measured on Riley and Chomsky.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

You seem to show a remarkable generosity to Rachel Riley here that was missing from say your criticisms of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

I'm not particularly interested defending Riley's politics. They're bland liberalism at best and clearly naive/bad faith in treating out-and-out racists as political allies. But what I am saying is that pretending that she's a right wing anti-Corbyn or pro-Israel zealot - is a pretty dubious priority for Corbynites. I don't think that's a defence of her personally or politically.

The reason I tend to be more critical of AOC is because she holds elected office and is perceived by many to be a radical leftist. Acknowledging the gaps between the rhetoric she used to get elected and the structural realities of what can be done under the current US political system is important, or at least it is important when loads of people are really invested in pretending those structural realities don't exist every two years.

I don't think these are particularly inconsistent or bad faith positions to hold.

[Nefertiti2]

Rachel Riley works with some very unpleasant people who are both right wing . anti Corbyn and Pro israel zealots. In particucalr the tweeters known as GnasherJew and Mishtal are rightwing and pro likud.

She has 612000 followers

https://twitter.com/RachelRileyRR/status/1083418004422098945

[Nefertiti2]

https://twitter.com/mishtal/status/1082231066172289025

[Nefertiti2]

https://twitter.com/mishtal/status/1082720743874576384