Anti-Semitism at the Labour Party conference and Corbyn’s other Jewish jokes
The tabloids are tucking into the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. Let’s take a look at see how they’re treating the issue of rampant Jew hatred in self-styled anti-racist party. We’ll begin with the Mirror, which mentions zer Jews on page 5, where they feature under “Joke of the Day”. MP Stella Creasy was at the Jewish Labour Movement meeting. Noting Corbyn’s comments about “British Jews failing to understand ‘English irony'” – no, not Zionists but Jews. The Mirror knows who Corbyn meant – Creasy quipped: “I was going to say something about how good it us being a Jew in the Labour Party at the moment, but someone told me you guys don’t get irony.”
On page 4, we hear Jeremy Corbyn’s response to being accused of being an anti-Semite. “Are you an anti-Semite,” the BBC’s Andrew Marr asked Corbyn. “No, absolutely not,” he replied. But a fair few of his friends and allies might be.
Jews are all over the Mail’s cover. Well, one them is. Luciana Berger, the Labour MP routinely attacked for being a Jew, was accompanied by two coppers as she attended an anti-Semitism all in Liverpool, her home city. The story continues on Page 6, where we learn that the coppers were carrying Tasers. Now we hear more from Creasy, and it’s not all that funny. The Mail finds space to include what the Mirror could not. Says Creasy:
“Nazism doesn’t turn up fully formed wearing black shiny boots and black shirts and goose-stepping. It builds bit by bit, it gains little by little, it paints itself as the victim – it paints its victims as the enemies, as traitors, the “other”. It rejects those norms and conventions on anti-Semitism that we have worked so hard to defend. That is the threat that we face if we do not confront this.”
And we get to hear from Berger, whose word were ignored by the Mirror. She told the meeting:
“There are Jews in this country who do not feel safe. We expect attacks that come from the far Right… but this year more than ever we have experienced attacks from the Left… Despite a last-minute and what I believe to be utterly shameful attempt to sabotage the IHRA definition and examples [the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism], Labour has at last adopted it, albeit with that unnecessary caveat. What matters now is draining the swamp. We need to see the Labour Party step up the investigations into complaints of anti-Semitism and get a faster, fairer, more transparent system of internal party justice.”
Berger says Labour is awash with a “tsunami of anti-Semitic hate”.
“If we have to spend another six months like we have spent the last six months, patiently explaining to new Labour Party members – and some old ones – that Hitler didn’t want to help the Jews, or that the Rothschilds don’t run the world banking system, or that the Jews didn’t finance the slave trade or that me and other Jewish MPs are not Mossad operatives, or that it’s not cool to desecrate the mass grave of the Warsaw ghetto with ‘woke’ slogans, we will be no further forward.”
More on page 16, where the Mail calls Labour the “new nasty party” as the party descends into a “sewer of anti-Semitism”.
In the Sun, it’s Jews on page 4. Corbyn, we read, refused to apologise to British Jews for hanging out with Jew haters and Jew killers, questioning their Britishness and liking an anti-Semitic mural. We hear Labour MP Rosie Duffield tell the Jewish Labour Moment: “I defy anyone who repeats anti-Semitism trope you see the social media arena to go there [Auschwitz] and say and feel the same things.” And then we spot an actual Jew. It’s Maureen Lipman, the actress, a former Labour party supporter. Lipman, we read, told a rally Corbyn is an anti-Semite. The Sun reports that Lipman’s new job on Coronation Street has attracted the attention of “Corbyn-backing viewers” who want her to be boycotted and sacked. Raus! Nationalise the soap industry!
Lastly, we turn to the Express. In page 5, we read: “Leader dodges anti-Semitism apology”. Why apologise for what you believe in? The Express says the anti-Semitism “dominated” the Labour conference – although not what the Mirror saw of it – adding:
At a packed rally on the conference fringe, some of Mr Corbyn’s harshest critics on the issue voiced their anger, singling out Unite boss Len McCluskey for accusing Jewish leaders of “truculent hostility” and PCS union chief Mark Serwotka for suggesting Israel fuelled Labour’s anti-Semitism row to distract attention from its own “atrocities”.
Labour MP Dame Louise Ellman said: “For major trade union leaders to not only smear the Jewish community and Jewish people for speaking out against anti-Semitism but then trying to blame them for it, I think we are entering into very dangerous waters… They are playing with fire and I call on them to withdraw those appalling statements.”
Here’s Marr with Corbyn:
Posted: 24th, September 2018 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
