By Ben Kerrigan-
Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn has launched a fresh drive against racism within the Labour party after admitting on Sunday a “real problem” with anti-Semitism which must be tackled properly.
In an effort to deflect any thoughts that anti-semitism is unique to the Labour party Corbyn said it was rising across the world. Corbyn, whose party was the subject of a shameful revelation of anti-semitism on BBC’s Panorama programme last week, went into intelligent and knowledgeable detail about the history of Anti Semitism, explaining the plights of the Jews.
He maintained the rights of people to express their views about any perceived injustices of the Israeli government, but was clear that holocaust denial or blaming Jews in the Uk or anywhere in the world for policy issues associated with the Israeli governmen is unacceptable, and anti-semitic.
”Antisemitism is an ancient and very particular form of racism, he said on the party’s site For most of their recorded history, Jewish people have been in the minority wherever they have lived and an easy target for scapegoating by the powerful.
The Middle Ages in Europe witnessed large-scale persecution of Jews including expulsions, forced conversions and killings. In the Crusades, hundreds of thousands of Jews were either killed in or expelled from Germany, England, France and Austria. All Jews were expelled from England in 1290.
“Hatred towards Jewish people is rising in many parts of the world,” Corbyn wrote to his party members in a letter informing them that Labour had set up a page on its website for “educational material” about racism. “Our party is not immune from that poison — and we must drive it out from our movement.”
“While other political parties and some of the media exaggerate and distort the scale of the problem in our party, we must face up to the unsettling truth that a small number of Labour members hold anti-Semitic views and a larger number don’t recognise anti-Semitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories.”
In the leaflet published on Labour’s website, under the title “No Place For Antisemitism,” the party lays out “basic tools to understand antisemitism so that we can defeat it.” It includes a recorded message from Corbyn in which he says, “No one should dismiss the concerns Jewish party members have expressed.”
“We have been slow in processing disciplinary cases of mostly online anti-Semitic abuse by party members,” Corbyn says. “I acknowledge there is a real problem of anti-Semitism that Labour is working to overcome.” Making reference to the mass shootings by death squads, the starvation and squalor of concentration camps, and the gas chambers, Corbyn confirms the cruel reality of the Holocaust , adding that its unique horror must never be minimised. Holocaust denials and revisionist are largely anti-semetic, he rightly points out.
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Turning to conspiracy theories, Corbyn outrightly denounces those he says” ascribe to Israel influence on world events far beyond any objective analysis”. ”Blaming Israel’s faults on its Jewish identity, or holding all Jews in the UK and elsewhere responsible for what Israel does is antisemitic”, he says. Whilst expressing his party’s support for a Palestinian Statehood and a two state solution to the conflict, Corbyn cautions against opposition to the Israeli government being translated into antisemitic ideas, such as attributing its injustices to Jewish identity, demanding that Jews in Britain or elsewhere answer for its conduct, or comparing Israel to the Nazis