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Analysis: the antisemitism scam and Corbyn
Activist Tom Baker analyses the impact of the scam and concludes the UK was robbed of an opportunity to reverse the toxic politics of the last 40+ years
As Theodor Adorno noted, a society that ignores thinking and thinkers is one in which reality is obscured by the act of not thinking. It becomes a pseudo reality.
The pseudo reality of the supposed ‘antisemitism crisis’ when Jeremy Corbyn was Leader of the Labour Party was generated by smothering deliberation and debate, and ignoring thinkers like the late David Graeber. Unfortunately (for those that continue to perpetuate the antisemitism scam) having one foot in the realm of the possible does not override the proof that is necessary to place the opposing foot in the realm of the actual.
Jeremy Corbyn never said Jews don’t understand English irony and did not lay a wreath to terrorists; Chris Williamson never said that the Labour Party had been ‘too apologetic’ about antisemitism; Jackie Walker never said that Jewish people controlled the slave trade; the EHRC did not find Labour to be ‘institutionally antisemitic’; Corbyn did not approve of an antisemitic mural and Ruth Smeeth’s allegations of antisemitism against Marc Wadsworth were completely false. (The ‘Labour antisemitism crisis’: 10 obvious frauds. | by Simon Maginn | Medium)
The only thing that the antisemitism scammers got half right was Corbyn referring to Hamas as ‘friends’. But the claim is intentionally misleading because he only did so to be cordial at a meeting. Jeremy Corbyn and Hamas aren’t ‘friends’, whatever that may entail, and his supposed ‘friendship’ with Hamas was based on a passing pleasantry in a formal setting. Had it entailed him getting hold of $15 million in cash, organising for it to be put it in suitcases and getting it delivered to Hamas in taxis, would he have been able to make the case that it was for humanitarian purposes as others have done?
The reality is that, despite losing in 2017, the Labour Party’s socialist manifesto was very popular with the electorate. Theresa May’s majority was taken away when she had expected to increase it and the fleeting possibility of a Corbyn-led Labour government in coalition with the SNP and Plaid Cymru became a serious hypothetical.
This was the moment to build on the success of a socialist manifesto that had delivered the biggest swing to Labour since Clement Atlee. However, the right wing of the Labour Party were not committed to campaigning for the election of a socialist Labour government; in fact it was committed to preventing it.
Between 2017 and 2019, the right wing of Labour invented an ‘antisemitism crisis’ to undermine the left and make a socialist government an impossibility. The antisemitism scam was a “…cold, deliberate, intentional fraud, on a gigantic scale”. As Simon Maginn has brilliantly and forensically shown, when the claims of antisemitism during this period are actually scrutinised, they turn out to be nothing.
Without evidence anything is ‘possible’, and it is therefore presented as ‘possible’ that Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite. However, this evidence-free ‘possibility’ was all the antisemitism scammers required. The vociferous, sustained and false claims of antisemitism only needed to be a) ‘possible’ and b) repeated endlessly by determined liars. When challenged, the liars that supported the antisemitism scam adhered to the following tactics; to present demanding proof as denying the seriousness of the accusations; to discuss the pros and cons of the matter is regarded as ‘downplaying’ the problem (one antisemite is one too many); and to speak the truth about it being a scam is to be maliciously labelled an antisemite.
The consequence of this intentional fraud was that the real economic case for reversing austerity was derailed by the pseudo reality of an ‘antisemitism crisis’, and Corbyn’s Labour Party – and the whole country – was denied the opportunity to reverse the neoliberal political trajectory that had begun in 1979. Jurgen Habermas noted that the priority of communication is not objective truth, but consensus; the objectively false consensus that Jeremy Corbyn was a dangerous antisemite was effectively communicated to the public.
The intention of the Labour right was to lose the 2019 election in the most spectacular fashion possible, install Keir Starmer as Leader, abandon the 2017 manifesto and claim to have transformed the party for the better. The attacks upon Jeremy Corbyn stuck because he naively relied upon the fact that the allegations of antisemitism were false and the assumption that they would not be taken seriously without proof.
But the veracity of the allegations was never the point. The antisemitism scam was a blunt heuristic instrument intended to prevent a socialist Prime Minister – it did not need to be wedded to facts or reality to succeed. Jeremy Corbyn is not an antisemite, therefore the precise details of the allegations became not only secondary to their seriousness, but also to the determined and urgent manner in which they were expressed.
The pseudo-reality of the antisemitism crisis could not escape the absurd conclusion that Britain had narrowly avoided being led by a dangerous antisemite. The reality, with one foot firmly planted in the realm of the possible and the other in the realm of the actual, is that British politics was hijacked by an antisemitism scam designed to change the leadership of the Labour party and shift mainstream politics to the right.
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IDF admits killing 3 escaped Israeli hostages in Gaza
Yet more Israelis killed by so-called ‘friendly fire’ after mass deaths 7 October as hostages shot dead
Yotam Haim, one of three Israeli hostages murdered ‘in error’ by Israeli forces
The Israeli army has admitted shooting dead three Israeli hostages who had escaped captivity in Gaza, claiming soldiers ‘mistook’ them for a Hamas threat, prompting a furious reaction among Israeli families against the Netanyahu regime.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari claimed the IDF feels ‘deep regret’ over the deaths of Yotam Haim, Samer Talalka and an as-yet unnamed Israeli.
The deaths have been reported by some UK media – unlike the hundreds of Israeli victims now known to have been killed by so-called ‘friendly fire’ from tanks, helicopters, drones and troops during the 7 October Hamas raid, as IDF forces killed indiscriminately under the ‘Hannibal doctrine‘ to prevent hostage-taking.
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Video: Israeli police kick journalist repeatedly in head – now hospitalised with ‘serious’ injuries
Yet more brutality from apartheid regime
Turkish photojournalist Mustafa Haruf has been kicked repeatedly in the head, without provocation, by Israeli police in occupied East Jerusalem, leaving him hospitalised in a serious and not yet stabilised condition.
Haruf, who works for Turkish news agency Anadolu, was first struck in the head with a rifle then yanked to the ground and set on by two uniformed thugs as others looked on and others tried to prevent filming:
Mr Haruf was subsequently able to speak to colleagues from his hospital bed. In Gaza, an Israeli airstrike killed Al Jazeera journalist Samer Abu Daqqa today and wounded Wael Al-Dahdouh, the Al Jazeera reporter whose family was killed in a targeted airstrike early in Israel’s genocidal assault, as they reported on yet another UN school being bombed.
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Al Jazeera news crew hit by Israeli missile as they reported on bombed South Gaza UN school
Wael Al-Dadouh’s family was killed in earlier Israeli airstrike targeting journalists’ homes
Al-Dahdouh receiving treatment after the missile strike
At least two Al Jazeera journalists have been hit by an Israeli missile as they reported on Israel’s overnight strike on a UN relief agency (UNRWA) school in southern Gaza that killed twelve people and seriously wounded at least twenty-five others. The victims were mainly women and children sheltering in the school after being driven from northern Gaza to the supposedly ‘safer’ south.
Wael Al-Dahdouh, whose family was killed in an earlier strike, was wounded but able to walk clear of the attack zone, while his cameraman was severely wounded and could not be reached by ambulances as the vehicles came under attack from Israeli forces. Al Jazeera showed footage of Mr Al-Dahdouh, bloodied and shaken, receiving treatment for shrapnel wounds:
Israel has been accused of targeting the homes and families of journalists and of Palestinian academics and artists, including poet and professor Refaat Alareer last week. The apartheid regime has also hit Al Ahli hospital in northern Gaza, which it bombed early in its genocidal assault killing more than five hundred people, with multiple strikes from drones and jets overnight.
The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that at least sixty-three journalists in Gaza have been killed by Israel since 7 October: fifty-six Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese, plus another fourteen missing and nineteen arrested, with more deaths reported but still to be confirmed. At least one more has been murdered in southern Lebanon and another lost her leg in a tank shelling.
Update: camera operator Samer Abu Daqqa has died of his wounds, the 64th journalist (some calculate 78th) confirmed murdered by the genocidal apartheid Israeli regime.
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Outrage builds over Unite’s use of Israel-linked firms as protesters occupy Axa Dublin office
Union management’s choice of firms is ‘huge embarrassment’, say insiders
A row has broken out in Unite over the union’s choice of insurer and hotel chain, after a group linked to the union occupied the European HQ of Axa insurance in Dublin.
Community Action Tenants’ Union (CATU) and the Dublin for Gaza group took over Axa’s offices and called for boycott of the company, according to Irish paper The Journal, because of the business being one of “725 European financial institutions that have subsidised apartheid Israel’s colonial settlements“. Axa told the paper that it “has no proprietary investments in any of the banks cited in recent calls for boycott”.
The action prompted growing anger among supporters of Palestinian human rights in Unite Ireland that the UK and Irish union’s official, democratic position is firm support of Palestinian freedom and right of return to lands taken from them by the Israeli settler-colonial project – and opposition to Israeli occupation, apartheid and oppression.
In fact, at its annual conference earlier this year, Unite delegates voted to formally support the ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ (BDS) movement that represents Palestinians’ peaceful resistance to the occupation by encouraging businesses to refuse to buy from or do business with illegally-occupied territories, in a resolution saying that Unite:
[recognises that] Israel is practicing the crime of apartheid, calls for an end to the UK Government’s proposed free trade agreement with Israel, and for support for BDS campaigns against companies complicit in supporting Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land.
Yet according to union insiders, Axa is Unite’s insurer in Ireland – and Unite’s designated provider of hotel accommodation is the Leonardo hotel group, which is part-owned by the Israeli Fattal group. One outraged insider told Skwawkbox:
It’s a huge embarrassment to Unite and one that is causing a lot of anger – even more so as our Irish exec meeting next month is taking place in the Belfast Leonardo’s.
What’s worse is that this has been going on for months and the union still hasn’t done anything to change it. Businesses linked to Israel should never have been selected in the first place, let alone still be used now with everything that’s going on in Gaza.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has already infuriated supporters of Palestinian rights by remaining silent for many weeks at the start of Israel’s latest genocidal assault on Gaza – then making a grossly asymmetrical statement appearing to treat Israeli deaths more seriously than Palestinian; and ultimately allegedly having the exec railroaded into accepting only her preferred wording when a statement was eventually issued.
Graham was also exposed using proxies to order the cancellation of showings of the film ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn/The Big Lie’, which exposes the political abuse of antisemitism accusations against left-wingers in the Labour party, and discussion of Asa Winstanley’s forensic book Weaponising Antisemitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn. Proxies were similarly despatched to try, unsuccessfully, to cancel a Unite ‘fringe’ event at Labour’s conference earlier this month in support of Palestinians.
Her popularity in Ireland is already low. Irish union legend Brendan Ogle is also suing her, her ally Tony Woodhouse and the union for defamation; he also alleges that he was abused by the union after his return from treatment for serious cancer – and after he made ‘protected disclosures’ to the union about its failures to adhere to covid protocols during the pandemic. Graham and her representatives have been accused of ‘disgusting’ behaviour toward Ogle – and anger in Ireland at the situation became so great that an entire sector branch threatened to disaffiliate entirely from Unite, the well-known ‘Right2Water’ campaign said it will no longer work with Unite, Unite’s Community section in Ireland condemned the ‘injustice inflicted’ on him and members picketed general secretary Sharon Graham’s long-delayed visit to Dublin.
Ms Graham is using Denton’s one of the world’s most profitable law firms to defend the defamation suit and Ogle’s the tribunal case. Denton’s was lambasted after its initial social media statement on Israel/Gaza failed even to mention the many Palestinian deaths. The statement was subsequently deleted and replaced.
Her tenure as Unite boss has been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including alleged destruction of evidence against her husband in misogyny and bullying complaints.
The Euro Med Monitor group reports that some 24,000 civilians in Gaza have been killed so far in just nine weeks by Israel’s bombing, shelling and invasion, around half of them children. Israel is also continuing to kill Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Politicians around the world have called on the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute Israeli government ministers for genocide and other war crimes.
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Hastings council leadership quits Labour to form Independent Group
Resignation statement damning of lack of policies and vision
Hastings council cabinet (including two Green then-members) in May 2022
The leadership of Hastings Council has announced its resignation from the Labour Party to form a Hastings Independents group. A statement from the group summarising their reasons reads:
After long and careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision today to leave the Labour Party and become independent councillors.
There are many reasons, but our view is that standing up for Hastings, and especially for our residents, will be much easier as independents.
The national Labour Party no longer provides us with the policies, the support or the focus on local government that we need given the many local issues we are committed to tackling.
We will now concentrate on standing up for Hastings, to work in partnership with all those who are passionate to drive our town forward, and our work in our communities, which is why we all became councillors.
As a group, we will not be making any further comment until the New Year.
Cllr Paul Barnett Leader of the Council
Cllr Maya Evans Deputy Leader of the Council
Cllr Andy Batsford Cabinet member
Cllr John Cannan Cabinet member
Cllr Ali Roark Cabinet member
Cllr Simon Willis Cabinet member
HASTINGS INDEPENDENTS
The Hastings cabinet consisted last year of six Labour and two Green councillors, but the coalition fell apart with the Greens ‘booted out’. Labour was already a minority on the council, but the largest party with fifteen out of thirty-two councillors. Now the party has less than a third of Hastings councillors, having already lost Norwich, Oxford and Burnley councils over outrage at Keir Starmer’s support for Israeli war crimes. It remains to be seen in the new year whether the genocide in Gaza is among the Hastings group’s ‘many reasons’.
Update: Statements by two of the councillors include Gaza among the reasons for their resignation:
Statement Cllr John Cannan, Wishing Tree Ward, Hastings Borough Council
Cabinet Member and Chair of the Charity Committee
14th December 2023
In May 2022 I was extremely proud to be elected as Labour Councillor for Wishing Tree Ward. I worked hard to get elected and received great support from the Labour Group. That same group of Labour comrades provided me with so much encouragement as I found my feet as a new Councillor. Since that time I have worked hard for the residents of Wishing Tree advocating for them across a broad range of issues.
In October 2022 I was delighted to be invited to join Cabinet as Chair of The Charity Committee. It’s been a real pleasure to work with a cabinet group of such talented, energetic, creative, and hardworking people. I have thoroughly enjoyed the journey described above which is why it has been such a difficult decision for me to make to resign from the Labour party with immediate effect.
Unfortunately, during the time I describe above the Labour Party Leadership and officials have moved the party away from the core values that I hold dear; protecting the most vulnerable, fairness, co-operatively working for the common good, protecting the interests of workers, cherishing the NHS, green policies to fight climate change, international co-operation to name a few. This has been evidenced by a failure to support striking workers and their unions, rowing back on green investment, support for the continued privatisation of the NHS and an appalling response to the tragedy currently taking place in Gaza.
At a local level unelected party officials have undermined Hastings Borough Council leadership over and over again. They vetoed a popular co-operation agreement with the Green Party. They have prevented popular local politicians from applying to stand as the local MP and have ‘parachuted in’ their favoured candidate. What does all this say about local democracy? They have blocked the deputy leader of the Council from standing as a councillor in the forthcoming local election. Where once there was a broad church receptive to ideas from all perceived wings of the party, there is now a narrow-minded vindictiveness directed at those on the left.
I wouldn’t join the Labour Party as it presents and operates today, hence this decision.
I look forward to working with the very talented group of newly independent Councillors who, I know, will put what is best for Hastings at the very core of everything they do.
Statement by Cllr. Maya Evans, Hollington Ward, Hastings Borough Council
Deputy Leader of the Council, Cabinet member for Regeneration & Climate Change
14th December 2023
I would like to announce my resignation of the Labour whip.
I was proudly elected councillor for Hollington ward in 2018 and have taken great pride and honour in serving my residents. Hollington has proven to me the importance of community solidarity and how people who have been given the least in life, often give the most when it comes to helping others. I have been both humbled and inspired by residents who have twice elected me to represent them on the council, and to be the change they want to see.
Over the last few years, it has become increasingly apparent that the Labour Party has moved away from many of its core values and principles. To woo the Tory vote the Labour Party has lost its way, leaning into right wing policies and rhetoric which has become increasingly difficult to publicly justify and support.
I understand that Labour’s current election strategy is to mirror the Tories, and although I want rid of the current abhorrent Government, I cannot continue to volunteer hundreds of hours to an organisation which no longer represents working people, no longer stands up for the persecuted and oppressed, and no longer has a vision to radically improve life for a huge portion of society who are on low incomes, marginalised and vulnerable. I know lots of Labour supporters will feel confusion and maybe even anger at my decision, however it has now become impossible to continue with integrity.
Locally we have been micromanaged by Westminster centric unelected Labour Party officials who have barely visited Hastings let alone understand the town and its residents. The national Labour Party has denied Hastings’ members the right to select their own parliamentary candidate and selection of councillors; and there is now a well-established national pattern of the Labour Party blocking people of colour from leadership positions. It appears unelected Labour officials now have a very fixed idea around who is electable, sadly this tends not to favour people of colour, working class people, or local people from the community. I have personally been blocked by the Labour Party from standing as an MP and also to re-stand as a councillor, reasons given were spurious.
Labour’s policy position on Gaza has been completely unforgiveable, from not supporting a ceasefire, to silencing politicians from speaking out, expelling an MP, unofficially instructing councillors not to attend peace marches, and enforcing a three-line whip which led to the resignation of 10 Labour MP shadow ministers. To date 18,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, 7,000 of which were children. To stay silent is to not support humanity.
I will continue to work hard for my residents as a Hastings Independent councillor, I will continue to uphold the values and principles I was elected upon, moreover I will continue to put Hastings first, prioritising everything I do for the furtherment of the town and its residents.
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Video: IDF driver ‘slowed down to murder two children’ during West Bank refugee camp raid
Raid supposedly in pursuit of ‘terrorist’ pauses to shoot dead two young boys aged 15 and 8 in cold blood
Israeli soldiers slowed down their convoy so the driver of the lead vehicle could murder two young boys in cold blood as they played in the street after an IDF raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, according to witnesses. The clip was played today on Al Jazeera’s English broadcast:
Basil Abu al-Waf, 15, and 8-year-old Adam Samer al-Ghoul, were playing outside after the IDF raid finished, believing it was now safe – but were killed by a convoy of troops returning from the camp.
Basil’s father told Al Jazeera that the Al-Basateen neighbourhood where they were playing is ‘known as a very quiet area’. A horrific video of Adam’s shooting as he tried to run away, which took place at the end of November, went viral. Hamas does not operate in West Bank, but Israel has intensified its attacks on the Jenin refugee camp regardless.
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Nudging – a review
In Nudging, Riccardo Viale explores the evolution of nudging (behavioural mechanisms to encourage people to make certain choices) and proposes new approaches that would empower rather than paternalise citizens. In Daniele Sudsataya’s view, the book is an insightful and notable re-evaluation of familiar behavioural economic ideologies. This blogpost originally appeared on LSE Review of Books. If you would like to contribute to … Continued
Video: IDF ‘executes’ Palestinian women, children, babies in school
CONTENT WARNING: harrowing Al Jazeera video exposes horrific scene of slaughter
A video released by Al Jazeera shows the bodies of women and children ‘piled up’ in a school near Jabalia in northern Gaza, where they had been shot at point blank range by Israeli soldiers who witnesses say had already executed the men sheltering with them.
Human rights watchdog Euro Med Monitor has also reported ‘executions’ by occupation troops:
Well over 66,000 parliamentarians, civil society figures and others from around the world have today called on the International Criminal Court to launch a formal war crimes prosecution against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, his cabinet and others responsible for the growing list of murders and atrocities in Gaza.
In case the Al Jazeera YouTube video is deleted, it is accessible here.
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