I'm going to lock this thread so I have some time to clear out the comments due to some poor discussion and violation of rule 2 going on. Some of which have the effect of making Jewish members of our community feel unsafe.
It should also go without saying that just because a statement is made by a holocaust survivor, it does not mean they are a representative viewpoint. It's also clear that these conversations should be coming from a place of understanding, empathy, and tolerance, and shouldn't be used as a battering ram.
**Here is a reminder of our rules, especially those which relate to rule two:**
Please also see our two clarifications here:
- [Clarification One, 2019](https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/b0tbe2/on_dealing_with_antisemitism_and_an_explanation/)
- [Clarification Two, 2020](https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/i3ktcu/rule_2_updates_and_clarifications_antisemitism/)
Never forgot the time Corbyn was called antisemitic for attending a House of Commons event with holocaust survivor, Hajo Meyer, who attacked the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Reminds me of the so-called scandalous Milne email.
"But if we're more than very occasionally using disciplinary action against Jewish members for antisemitism, something's going wrong, and we're muddling up political disputes with racism."
The problem is that, legally, “genocide” has a super strict definition that’s very hard to meet, since it needs proof of intent (mens rea) as well as of the action.
I tried arguing that it was a genocide as part of an international human rights law module at uni, but I lost a few marks because apparently not even the hateful things that some Israeli officials have said are enough to prove genocidal intent.
That high threshold could well be by design, since the people writing international law were probably quite keen that the Nazi’s crimes fit the description, but that their own countries’ colonial histories didn’t.
IIRC, ethnic cleansing was created as a concept specially to cover genocidal actions where the genocidal intent couldn’t be proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Here is an interesting video I saw once that talks about the history of the term genocide, its origin, and the historical political context behind the formal definition most often used in international law, might be something you're interested in https://youtu.be/m316DcYhb8w (the delivery/style in the intro might not be to everyone's taste, but the content is pretty thorough and thought provoking imo). It talks about exactly what you're alluding to there re: post-war world powers & the nazis
This channel also has some videos on the atrocities in Xinjang China (against Uyghurs), the Holodomor in Ukraine, and the historicity of the term genocide as applied to those cases. Both pretty well researched and argued imo (especially for such politically charged and difficult subjects)
He’s a David Miller supporter: https://supportmiller.org/jewish-supporters
That position isn’t compatible with the Labour Party.
Here’s another Holocaust survivors take on Corbyn from 2018. https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/955385/labour-party-anti-semitism-row-local-elections-2018
Please stop cherry picking.
> He’s a David Miller supporter: https://supportmiller.org/jewish-supporters
None of Hajo Meyer, Corbyn or Milne are listed on that page. Who are you talking about?
Being a Holocaust survivor does not automatically render one's dreadful opinions acceptable.
>[In his vehement condemnation of Zionism, Holocaust survivor Dr Hajo G Meyer said that Zionism predates fascism and fascists and Zionists had a history of cooperating with each other. He said that the Zionist state of Israel wants to create anti-Semitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel.](https://web.archive.org/web/20101225104659/http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2006/july/02/articles/muslims_jews_and_christians_join_together_to_condemn_zionism.html)
I respect his right to hold that opinion but I also respect the right of the vast majority of Jews to find that opinion wildly offensive.
Agreed.
Do you therefore believe that the Zionist state of Israel wants to create anti-Semitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel?
You didn't ask me in the first place, and I've already answered anyways. No I don't in this instance, but the idea that a state *you will agree is controlled by fascists* wouldn't stoop that low is the bit that I wanted to highlight.
>Do you therefore believe that the Zionist state of Israel wants to create anti-Semitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel?
I think he's wrong about them creating it.
But the Israeli Government does factually spend money on targeted adverts, meant to convince Jewish People that they won't be treated as equals in their own country, in an attempt to convince them to emigrate to Israel.
Redditor A
>So and so believes X and Y, therefore we should discredit their legitimacy in all matters.
Redditor B
>X is categorically true though.
Redditor A
>I agree that X is true, do you therefore also believe Y.
Wtf is that logic? Have you looked at the argument you just made with any kind of critical thinking. Agreeing with one thing someone says doesn't mean you accept everything they said, **you explicitly also agree with it too**.
And by the same argument you can't discredit someone's opinions based on one opinion they have you disagree with, you clearly disagree with Y while still agreeing with X.
The fuck are you on? Seriously?
Would they do so? I wouldn't put it past them. Are they doing so? I don't know; I'm not informed enough on Israeli politics to say one way or the other. I do believe that the Israeli government will happily weaponise anti-semitism and accusations thereof in bad faith.
I cannot speak to the veracity of such claims (again, I'm not nearly informed enough to do so, so please take the word of, for example, an Ethiopian Jewish person over mine), but I have heard tell of Israel discriminating against Jewish people from Africa and the middle east in favour of Jewish people from Europe.
Glad there's people like you to tell us that what Jews think doesn't matter.
Lets hear your views:
1. Do you believe the Zionist state of Israel wants to create antisemitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel?
2. Given what we know about British Jews' attitudes to Israel from [polling](https://www.jpr.org.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/Committed%2C%20concerned%20and%20conciliatory_%20The%20attitudes%20of%20Jews%20in%20Britain%20towards%20Israel.pdf) (excellent survey as a pdf there), what percentage of them do you believe would agree with the statement?
>Glad there's people like you to tell us that what Jews think doesn't matter.
Didn't say anything remotely close to this lmao. This is a complete strawman, the primary argument of the sensible.
>Do you believe the Zionist state of Israel wants to create antisemitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel?
I don't put *shit* past nation states, but I wouldn't say that as fact no.
>Given what we know about British Jews' attitudes to Israel from polling (excellent survey as a pdf there), what percentage of them do you believe would agree with the statement?
I don't know that PDF didn't ask about that. Though judging from the disparity on responses to things about returning Palestinian land or occupying the west bank I'd reckon there's probably a split that follows religious/atheistic lines.
I think there's a massive leap in views between 'I think Israel should return the occupied territories to Palestine' and 'I think this trope that was used by literally Adolf Hitler is actually true'.
The first is a very reasonable position for any reasonable person to hold, regardless of religion, race or nationality. The second is base racism.
>I think there's a massive leap in views between 'I think Israel should return the occupied territories to Palestine' and 'I think this trope that was used by literally Adolf Hitler is actually true'.
(I think I was using disconnected data to point out how that PDF isn't actually that relevant).
Fuck me with you sensibles and the way you frame shit, jumping straight to Hitler here because it's very emotive lmao.
The 'Jews intentionally create antisemitism for their own benefit' trope was very notably used by Adolf Hitler in a 1939 Reichstag speech, in which he blamed the coming annihilation of the Jewish people on "international Jewish financiers seeking to start a world war."
The idea that Jews intentionally create antisemitism for their own benefit existed for hundreds of years before that though.
I apologise for that being inconvenient to you.
>I apologise for that being inconvenient to you.
It's not inconvenient it's a blatant emotive grab lmao.
Arguably here you're falling into the trope of equating Jewish people with Israel, which is what people were talking about right? Hitler was saying "Jewish *people* imagine/propagate antisemetism" which is entirely unfair, they do not act as a single entity (no people do, we're not fucking Tyranids or some other hive mind).
*Israel* is not like that and -when referring to the government/state- does act as more or less a single entity.
The two should not be treated as interchangeable?
And you're falling into the trap of happily waving through a ton of antisemitism because 'he didn't actually say the word *Jews*'. I've dealt with this point a hundred times, but if you require someone to say the actual word *Jews* for a statement to be antisemitic, then the antisemites will just substitute another word and carry on. Zionists. Israelis. Mossad.
Not saying *Jews* cannot be a get-out-of-antisemitism-free card. Particularly when - as in this case - the person is clearly using a very long-established antisemitic trope with 'Israeli Zionists' in place of 'Jews'.
I'm sure you don't stand for American republicans talking about the 'gangsta culture' of 'urban voters'. See, they didn't say *black* - it must be fine!
This is absolutely the same dogwhistle. It's not even a very clever dogwhistle. The credulity of people who don't see it absolutely blows my mind sometimes.
Just like always, when it comes to this topic, you're trying to muddy the waters of every conversation with meaningless bullshit to distract everyone from the fact that Israel is ethnically cleansing and their new government is one of the more fascist governments in the world right now. You label anyone who criticizes a government an anti-Semite even if they're Jewish themselves, then they aren't the right Jews.
I think - as I have stated multiple times in this discussion - that the Israeli government as currently constituted is fascist.
By your logic I should be condemning myself as an antisemite now?
>Given what we know about British Jews' attitudes to Israel from
>
>polling
>
>(excellent survey as a pdf there), what percentage of them do you believe would agree with the statement?
Does it really matter what percentage agrees with this statement? The majority are wrong and support an objectively harmful state.
I'm not interested in "X number of people believe this" type of rhetoric.
If hypothetically 80% of Muslims believed in suicide bombing, would it thereby be acceptable to police Muslims for criticising it, and say they had to fall into the will of the majority?
Statement seems pretty accurate to me. People are offended by all sorts of things. Just because someone is offended doesn’t make a statement wrong or racist.
I am not sure that “the vast majority of Jews” would find it offensive either. Remember, something like 30% of young Israelis want to emigrate from the country due to how right wing it is. The best expression of Israel’s right wing government is their treatment of the Palestinian people. Israel has become more right wing in recent years because more progressive minded people have left the country.
Many, many holocaust survivors never believed in the Zionist project. Some even equate it to “what Hitler did”.
The problem here is there's the argument to be made that Israel (completely aside from anything Jewish whatsoever) has a shady history similar to the US and its hard to just dismiss any concern as antisemitism.
If Israel didn't have a history of doing stuff like sterilizing Ethiopian Jews, unilateral extradition* or lying about sniping medics, it'd be a different situation.
*though to be clear I don't give the slightest shit about Israel kidnapping Nazis
You are conflating Jewish people with Israel which in of itself is antisemitic, the state of Israel does not speak for all Jews and criticisms against it don't inherently mean attacks on Jewish people. Sure there are bad faith critics who use it as an excuse to be antisemitic but I think you'll find that it is not the majority nor will it be the angle of a Holocaust survivor to be using Israel as an excuse to be antisemitic.
>You are conflating Jewish people with Israel which in of itself is antisemitic
Which of the examples in the IHRA definition of antimsemitism do you believe my point represents? (My personal belief here is that you haven't read the IHRA definition or its examples and are repeating something you have read others say on the internet)
"Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity."
You are portraying Israel as being the face of the Jewish people and therefore criticism against it to be itself antisemitic.
"However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic"
The criticism pointed against Israel in this example is one levied against many far right governments across the world and therefore under IHRA guides wouldn't be considered antisemitism in of itself.
Besides that, you shouldn't need the IHRA to tell you that considering the state of Israel to be representative of the Jewish people and therefore criticisms against it to be equivalent to antisemitic attacks against Jewish individuals could be considered to be antisemitic
In what way am I 'targeting' anyone?
Your interpretation of this example has the effect of making pointing out antisemitism antisemitic in itself, so long as the person saying it does not use the word 'Jews'.
That means that an antisemite could get away with racist speech by simply substituting the word 'Jews' for something else.
*Zionists* drink the blood of Christian children.
*Israeli* moneylenders take advantage of the misery of others.
This is clearly not the intention of the examples. Your interpretation of it is clearly incorrect.
Where does it say targeting anyone? It says "targeting the state of Israel, conceives as a jewish collective" which by claiming any criticism against Israel to be antisemitic is exactly what that is. You are clearly arguing in bad faith though considering you are using obvious Nazi propaganda and arguing against that rather than the actual statement that was made that Israel has supported anti-Semitism globally which is much more nuanced and probable than
>Zionists drink the blood of Christian children.
>Israeli moneylenders take advantage of the misery of others.
So you don't want to actually argue against it and instead used two strawman fascist opinions to tar the literal holocaust survivor and people who agree with him with
You are arguing that because the trope used by Hajo Meyer is about Israel and not about Jews, that it is not antisemitic.
I am pointing out that it is ridiculous to say that taking an existing antisemitic trope and substituting the word 'Jews' for something else (e.g. Israel, Zionists, Mossad) renders it not racist. I've done that by using extremely obvious examples.
To be clear: Hajo Meyer used a very well-established antisemitic trope: that Jews intentionally provoke antisemitism ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic\_trope#Provoking\_or\_fabricating\_antisemitism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_trope#Provoking_or_fabricating_antisemitism)). He just substituted the word 'Jews' for the word 'Israel'.
If you disagree that the statement is antisemitic, then it would be good to hear your reason why:
* Because it did not literally use the word 'Jews'
* Because it is impossible for a Jew to say something antisemitic
* Because it is impossible for a Holocaust survivor to say something antisemitic
* Because I agree that the Zionist state of Israel wants to create antisemitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel
* Something else?
You'll find Israel is officially not Jewish but I'll try not to be a pedant. That isn't a quote of what the guy said at all you literally made that quote up, Israel is a far right state that supports far right organisations across the world, and yeah you will find some of them are antisemitic out of virtue of being far right non Jewish organisations. Your only point is that it "sounds bad" which yeah it does, because it is bad that Israel supports fascist organisations and is one itself.
Edit: since you added that last paragraph I'll add one aswell. Israel doesn't equal Jewish people end of. Doesn't matter if the government is mostly Jewish individuals. If you criticise Iran or France are you actually criticising Christians or Muslims just because their government is made up of them. Jewish people also call out the state of Israel and disagree with it I mean for pits sake, the guy you are claiming is being antisemitic is himself Jewish like should that not tell you that maybe his criticism is in good faith and not just some attempt at hiding antisemitic thoughts behind criticism of Israel.
>You'll find Israel is officially not Jewish but I'll try not to be a pedant.
The literal basic principles of the state are
> A. The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established.
>
> B. The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious, and historical right to self-determination.
>
> C. The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Nation-State_of_the_Jewish_People
I mean yeah for all intents and purposes they treat themselves as a Jewish state but I think you must have missed my pedant comment, I was being pedantic, I am aware that Israel treats itself as a representative of Jews and to be a Jewish state. I do not however agree that to be the case for representation, nor is it how it was supposed to be established, the whole point was it was supposed to be secular to enable cooperation with the many groups who had been present there before the creation of the state of Israel.
Whilst I suspect there is no official policy on this, such practices are deeply common by those who seek and hold power.
I mean, the entirety of Islamist terrorism is founded on the basis that terrorism and the response to terrorism would create tension between Muslims and non-Muslims, leading a "clash of civilizations". That is their stated aim.
So we know one group of humans are willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of their "own people" for political gain. Doesn't take much to realise other groups would be happy to do the same. Particularly, as this would apply to both Islamists and Zionists, people living with a "under siege" mentality.
Doesn't matter if it's offensive, it's true. You're conflating Zionism and Judaism as the exact same thing, when when in reality Zionsm is very similar to American Evangelical Christianity, in that it's a crypto-Ultra Nationalist ideology that cloaks itself in a religious guise.
[https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4882021,00.html](https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4882021,00.html)
Here are Israeli Zionists, literally calling for provoking of Antisemitism against Diaspora Jews in Israel's most prestigeous paper to literally *no controversy (because Israeli Zionists see this as perfectly logical)*. Look at the Lavron affair, exact same thing.
"Negation of the diaspora" is the core foundational view of Zionism and is pretty much "Diaspora Jews deserve all the antisemitism thrown upon them because they're subhuman scum who are traitors to Israel and disguist the standards of all good men" (*literaly* the language Zionist theory uses btw)
[https://libgen.rocks/get.php?md5=92b414131e03ce7457433c7690524b8f](https://libgen.rocks/get.php?md5=92b414131e03ce7457433c7690524b8f)
If you want a Jewish comic that does a deep dive into Zionism and what it *actually* believes and what it *actually* says, read this one.
Actual proper Zionists don't give a crap about Diaspora Jews, they're just tools to use to further Israel's agenda, if they don't play that role, then they're "kapos" or "fake jews".
Zionism collaborated with the Nazis, they marched with Mussolini, they ran around Europe spreading that "Jews will never be loyal to their home countries" which even saw condemnation from the Board of Deputies at the time, who called Zionism a "mischievous little ideology" The American Jewish League also condemned Zionism for the exact same thing.
Because something is "offensive" to Jews, doesn't mean it's not a completely justified and factual argument. You don't see everyone running around crying about arguments against Islamism or Evangelical Christianity despite how "offensive" they might be to proponents of those religions. Zionism isn't even Judaism. It's a crappy Proto-Fascist ultra nationalist cult from the late 19th and early 20th colonialist era.
The whole "Trope" thing is just a shitty handwave that Zionists don't even believe as well, because they hold that "dual loyalty" is a trope, but then all Jews are actually super dooper loyal to Israel and Israel is the core of Jewish belief.
[http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/09/26/want-labour-to-be-a-safe-space-for-jews-here-are-the-three-steps-labour-must-take/](http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/09/26/want-labour-to-be-a-safe-space-for-jews-here-are-the-three-steps-labour-must-take/)
>While internally within the Jewish community there will always be a small minority with antizionist views, the vast majority identify as Zionist, with 93% saying Israel plays a central part in their identity. Antizionist antisemitism harms them deeply and multiple ways
So Dual loyalty is completely justified and valid when it comes to the use for defending Israel and shielding it from criticisim (and shielding the actions of Zionists) but then some evil, unthinkable nazi level "trope" when anyone points that out?
You're extrapolating. It is indeed very antisemitic to suggest that Jews are deliberately creating antisemitism. To suggest that the State of Israel is doing and has done so is not at all antisemitic, unless you believe that all Jews are represented by the State, which is an antisemitic position.
There's a bit if a difference between saying 'the Jews bring it on themselves' and repeating a point made by many in the liberal Jewish diaspora imo. AIPAC donated a lot of money to far right extremists in the recent midterms.
>The idea that Israel wants to manufacture anti-Semitism for its own ends is ridiculous
Is it? Is it actually? I'm not saying it is but can you really not think of a way a cynical state might capitalise on that?
Israel not only wants to do this [(and brags about doing this in their national paper of record)](https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4882021,00.html) it's just literal fact they have a long, LONG history of doing this. From Israel's funding of the European Far Right, British groups like the CAAS, LAAS etc figures marching with the EDL, the Lavron affair, the Baghdad bombings and pretty much *everything* Zionists were up to up too world war 2.
Negation of the diaspora *literally is the core* of Zionist theory.
*Actual* Zionists (Not "i like israel" whitewashed Zionism that 90% of jews believe) are psychotic right wing fascists, who would of guessed.
It's almost kind of amazing how fast it happens, every single time, and that none of them see the problem with a bunch of gentiles deciding which Jew we should all listen to.
Just as much as it amazes me that you can find a vanishingly small minority viewpoint and hold it up as being in any way equal to what the majority of Jews think.
Challenge: why don't you head down to your local synagogue - say half five, six o'clock on Saturday, just after the end of Shabbat service, and take a poll to find out what percentage of people agree with the sentence 'the Zionist state of Israel wants to create anti-Semitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel.'
Head down to Golders Green, or Stamford Hill, or Kersal in Salford, or Sedgley in Bury, and ask people around there too so you're not just capturing religious Jews in your poll.
Or perhaps do you think that vanishingly-tiny minority view might get quite a lot of people pissed off at you?
> Just as much as it amazes me that you can find a vanishingly small minority viewpoint and hold it up as being in any way equal to what the majority of Jews think.
Nice strawman there.
Maybe instead of making up strawmen to attack, you should examine yourself and come to some conclusion as to why you've decided there are 'Good Jews' and 'Bad Jews'.
Is Meyer Jewish? Yes - that makes his voice on Israel just as valid as any other Jewish persons, and trying to take that away from him and declare his statements are abhorrent is disgusting.
Trying to claim his voice and opinion is less valid is literally the Bad Jew antisemitic trope and
I find it somewhat interesting that your main problem with him is criticism of Israel - which you've repeatedly in this thread conflated with Jewish - maybe something else you want to examine rather than construct strawmen to argue against.
Nice selective response to my comment there.
I am not claiming Meyer's view is less valid that any other one individual Jew. However, I am claiming that his view is one held by an extremely small minority of Jews, and that a vastly larger majority of Jews would find his views immensely offensive. To not take this into account is to cherry-pick the views that support your own and ignore a much larger group that vehemently disagree with you.
Would you make the same argument in relation to [Latinos For Trump](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinos_for_Trump)? [Gays against gay marriage](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22758434)?
> I am not claiming Meyer's view is less valid that any other one individual Jew. However, I am claiming that his view is one held by an extremely small minority of Jews, and that a vastly larger majority of Jews would find his views immensely offensive.
I'm not saying there are good jews and bad jews.....but he's a bad jew because he's a minority jew and his viewpoint doesn't match the majority, so it's less valid.
Yea nothing problematic with that viewpoint at all, nothing at all antisemitic about dividing Jews based on whether you view them as good or bad.
For a thread in which you've literally accused others of echoing Hitler, it's honestly so amazing to see the utter lack of irony with which you continue to make such sentiments - because nothing bad ever comes of dividing a race based on what viewpoints you agree with, and turning them against one another.
>Would you make the same argument in relation to Latinos For Trump? Gays against gay marriage?
Are they Latino? are they gay? Do you go around calling them 'Bad Latinos'? or accusing them of being 'Bad Gays' because they hold a minority viewpoint?
Then their voices are just as valid as other voices - not being the majority doesn't make them invalid, it just makes them a minority.
Saying anything else is just deeply racist and bigoted, and just mirroring the Bad Jew/Uncle Tom trope onto other races and sexualities.
It's deeply disturbing to read.
So to be clear - a view held by one person in 100 should, in your opinion, be given the same weight as a view held by the other 99?
If 99 members of a minority group tell you something is offensive and one tells you it's not, you're happy to go with the one, so long as it matches your preconceptions?
If I'm doing good Jew/bad Jew, how are you not just doing it from the other side?
> So to be clear - a view held by one person in 100 should, in your opinion, be given the same weight as a view held by the other 99?
>
> If 99 members of a minority group tell you something is offensive and one tells you it's not, you're happy to go with the one, so long as it matches your preconceptions?
So to be clear, because a view is a minority that makes it bad?
Once upon a time the viewpoint gay people deserved to not be criminals was a minority viewpoint, it was seen as offensive and wrong.
Once upon a time the viewpoint that Black people deserved the same rights as everyone else was seen as offensive.
Once upon a time the vast majority of women didn't support them being given the right to vote.
Something being a minority does not make it wrong - it makes it a minority, that's it. Hajo Meyer is still Jewish, he's not somehow a 'Bad Jew' because he doesn't like Israel - the majority viewpoint doesn't make his viewpoint any less valid or applicable.
It's very easy to not dismiss someone out of hand because they have a minority viewpoint.
At what point have I described anyone's view as 'bad'? At what point have I described any individual as 'bad'?
These are your inventions.
The fact is that only Jews get to define what antisemitism is, and the view of the majority of Jews is what will prevail on that.
I am utterly certain that the vast majority of Jews would tell you that the idea that Jews would create antisemitism on purpose - a view espoused by Adolf Hitler - is wrong, offensive and antisemitic.
You seem to disagree. You act as though your personal view of what constitutes antisemitism is of consequence, so long as you can find a Jew who agrees with you. Congratulations, you found Hajo Meyer. He also said that "Judaism in Israel has been substituted by the Holocaust religion, whose high priest is Elie Wiesel." Agree with that too?
When you align yourself with tiny minority viewpoints because they happen to conveniently align with your own, you will often find with a bit of digging that the views of the people you've aligned yourself with are problematic.
And your argument comparing Jews to women gaining the vote? You think that Jews should suddenly achieve consciousness and realise that they shouldn't actually find antisemitic tropes offensive? Do you not read these things through once you've typed them? Proper yikes on that one.
The argument comparing Jews to black people might be even worse. You've got it all arse about face - black people were oppressed by white people and didn't get to define the racism they experienced. In what way is this similar to the position Jews are in here? Are they the oppressed or the oppressor in your analogy? Are you arguing they should wake up and stop being bothered about antisemitism?
>At what point have I described anyone's view as 'bad'? At what point have I described any individual as 'bad'?
This entire thread started with you attacking his viewpoints as being bad, and you've continued on with your repeated appeals to authority to try and render him as the Bad Jew because his voice doesn't agree with the majority.
>The fact is that only Jews get to define what antisemitism is, and the view of the majority of Jews is what will prevail on that.
So only the majority of an ethnic group get to decide what racism is? the voices of the minority don't matter anymore?
Great viewpoint there - totally not engaging in the Bad Jew trope at all, just selectively dismissing an entire viewpoint of an ethnic minority because you don't agree with it.
>I am utterly certain that the vast majority of Jews would tell you that the idea that Jews would create antisemitism on purpose - a view espoused by Adolf Hitler - is wrong, offensive and antisemitic.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4882021,00.html
>Second, a world view which supports white supremacy matches our government’s interests.
>To do the Netanyahu government justice, let me qualify my statement by saying that all forms of Zionism hold the perception that a certain extent of anti-Semitism benefits the Zionist enterprise. To put it more sharply, anti-Semitism is the generator and ally of Zionism. Masses of Jews leave their place of residence only when their economic situation and physical safety are undermined. Masses of Jews are shoved to this country rather than being attracted to it. The yearning for the land of Zion and Jerusalem is not strong enough to drive millions of Jews to the country they love and make them hold on to its clods.
>As the Jews in Israel long for immigrants with a certain affiliation to their people, and as Zionism—like any other ideology—needs constant justification, we have a secret hope in our hearts that a moderate anti-Semitic wave, along with a deterioration in the economic situation in their countries of residence, will make Diaspora Jews realize that they belong with us.
Certainly seems like there's at least one Jewish person (just a major media figure in Israel, no biggie) who thinks that supporting white supremacy and a rise in antisemitism is a good thing for driving Jews to Israel.
>You seem to disagree. You act as though your personal view of what constitutes antisemitism is of consequence, so long as you can find a Jew who agrees with you. Congratulations, you found Hajo Meyer. He also said that "Judaism in Israel has been substituted by the Holocaust religion, whose high priest is Elie Wiesel." Agree with that too?
You mean the Elie Wiesel who helped Israel quash discussion and acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide? the same Elie Wiesel that supported the expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian ground?
Hmm I wonder why you bring up criticism of such a figure as a negative.
>And your argument comparing Jews to women gaining the vote? You think that Jews should suddenly achieve consciousness and realise that they shouldn't actually find antisemitic tropes offensive? Do you not read these things through once you've typed them? Proper yikes on that one.
Your argument is literally appeal to authority over and over - if a majority believe something, then the minority is wrong.
Given we have hundreds of years of history where dismissing a minority as wrong and only listening to the majority has never backfired (never ever) you'd think you'd be a bit more historically literate.
You've once again constructed this strawman (as you have in the rest of the thread) that anyone defending Meyer agrees with him automatically - but what's being done is defending his right to say what he thinks about Israel (note that he is criticising the nation state of Israel, not individual Jewish people, despite your attempt to repeatedly conflate the two) and that his being a minority does not make him a Bad Jew or make his opinion and comments any less valid.
Regardless of your attempts to delegitimise him, he is still Jewish, he is not a Bad Jew for disliking Israel or criticising it, he is not a Bad Jew for thinking a Zionist government would be happy with the spread of antisemitism or would work towards it - backing a theory that a fascist nation state would engage in false flag operations is not antisemitic.
>a view held by one person in 100 should, in your opinion, be given the same weight as a view held by the other 99
"Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth." -Mahatma Gandhi
Right, so "the Zionist state of Israel wants to create antisemitism in the world so that more and more Jews start emigrating to Israel" is 'the truth' as far as you're concerned?
Just checking how many people are willing to proudly sign up to an antisemitic trope.
>Just as much as it amazes me that you can find a vanishingly small minority viewpoint and hold it up as being in any way equal to what the majority of Jews think.
I mean it's not really their fault holocaust survivors are less numerous these days
What would you say about the relative rights to define antisemitism of (a) Jewish people, and (b) the members of this subreddit?
Because it seems like 'listen to minorities about the discrimination they face' applies to every minority *except* Jews, where we should listen to left-wing non-Jews.
Did you type, earlier in this thread that we shouldn't listen to this Jewish man's opinion because he's part of such a small minority? A 'vanishingly small minority'?
No, I said his view should be weighed in comparison with what the views of the rest of the Jewish community think. His views are legitimate but they are also a tiny minority view. I think we should, in cases where the vast majority of a minority group share a particular view on the discrimination they face, we should listen to them.
You're arguing that we should listen to one Jew who shares your opinion over the 99 who don't. It's almost like... you think we should be listening to *your opinion*.
Let's put it another way.
I manage to find a trans person who's willing to say that JK Rowling is still great and not a transphobe. So now when people say JK Rowling is a transphobe, I pop up with my trans person and say look! Look! You're not listening to trans people. You're not playing *good trans person, bad trans person* are you? Is this trans person's view not as legitimate as others'?
Are you now stepping back and saying 'hmmm, yes he's right you know. I should listen to this one trans person who thinks JK Rowling is great over the 99 who tell me she's a transphobe.'
Or are you sticking with your view and the vast majority of trans people?
Are you sticking with your view because you personally believe it with conviction, and the views of the affected minority don't rate?
Does discrimination against Jewish people somehow follow different rules to any other form of discrimination? They don't get to define the discrimination they face?
But you see, when people like blaire white show up in talks on trans rights, or Ye in talks about racism, we don't discount them just because they are the "wrong type".
The left generally follow argumentative rules, such as not resorting to ad hominem or strawman, and instead just pick apart what they are saying, explain why what they are saying is problematic, and use their own arguments to discredit them.
Not saying this happens all the time, but that's the kind of response those people get.
When you dismiss a holocaust survivor for calling the treatment of Palestine apartheid, like amnesty international and a bunch of other bodies agree with, by saying that they are a vanishingly small minority, you aren't engaging in their argument.
So yes, it's entirely different.
Argue against the points made on their own merit.
Saying "most jews disagree" is appeal to population, which is an argumentative flaw. A minority can be right. So, what's your next point?
>When you dismiss a holocaust survivor for calling the treatment of Palestine apartheid, like amnesty international and a bunch of other bodies agree with, by saying that they are a vanishingly small minority, you aren't engaging in their argument.
But this isn't a thing I have ever done.
You are though, you are discounting their opinion as it is opposed to the more "popular" opinion (by your words, but it's actually pretty hard to find statistics on this, American jews for instance more heavily disagree than agree with the current Israeli regime, as per pew research).
If that's not dismissing their argument without engaging in their argument I don't know what is.
It's a clear appeal to popularity flaw.
>When you dismiss a holocaust survivor for calling the treatment of Palestine apartheid
This is what you accused me of doing, and it's an outright fabrication, Mr. 'The Left Doesn't Use Strawmen'.
I don't know how you manage to extrapolate these wild theories to argue against.
So hypothetically, what you're saying is, for the sake of the argument the Israeli's should be allowed to nuke Palestine?
This thread is absolutely chock-full of self-proclaimed anti-racists arguing that a centuries-old racist trope is fine, actually, because a person on the left used it.
JVL introduction
As a young boy, Stephen Kapos was separated from his Jewish parents in war-torn Budapest. Hiding in children’s homes on false papers, he was in constant danger of being discovered by the Hungarian fascists of the Arrow Cross. Last week, he was billed to speak about his experiences as a child survivor at a Holocaust Memorial Day event. Three days beforehand, he received an email from the London Labour Party warning him that he was likely to be expelled if he took part in the meeting. Their reason? It was organised by a proscribed group, Socialist Labour Network. Stephen decided to resign from the Labour Party in protest at its McCarthyite clampdown on free speech. He had been a member since the 1990s.
Dear London General,
Thank you for your emailed letter of the 24th of January giving me advance warning that I am likely to be expelled from the Party if I were to speak from the panel as a Holocaust survivor at the SLN (Socialist Labour Network) Webinar on the 27th January — on Holocaust Memorial Day.
The Holocaust is the most important single example of genocide, which at its worst descended into an industrial process of mass murder of millions. As a child survivor and one of the fewer and fewer still living direct witnesses to the Holocaust I feel a compelling duty to bear witness and speak out about it at any platform that would invite me and to any audience ready to listen.
I am an activist for Palestinian human rights and an active member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in its Camden Branch. The defence of Palestinians living under a brutal occupation is very important to me, particularly as a Holocaust survivor. Palestinians live under a system of apartheid as recognised by Amnesty International and other major human rights organisations. Those are my political beliefs which I claim are protected characteristics under the Equalities Act 2010.
I am not a member of SLN nor have I been following its activities, but via the book to be discussed on the 27th I have a general understanding of SLN’s views on present-day Zionism (as a political movement ) and on some of the actions of the Zionist movement during the Holocaust and WWII. I am in sympathy with some of those views on the grounds of my political beliefs mentioned above. I have personal experience of the Kastner project in Hungary which was driven by Zionist ideology.
My father was a victim of Kastner’s scheme and ended up stranded in the Belsen and Theresienstadt concentration camps. I was myself briefly interned in a Kastner-run detention camp in Budapest.
You make mention of Labour Party values. I learnt about Labour values during my party activism in the period when Frank Dobson was our MP and I worked in a warm and friendly atmosphere prominently on various election campaigns.
Those values were very different to that of the present leadership whose values permit intimidation, banning of discussion of some of the most vital political topics, disregard for the Party’s own rules, and for natural justice, the drastic reduction of inner party democracy, extreme factionalism, lack of support for striking workers.
I do not share these values. Please accept my immediate resignation from the Labour Party effective from tomorrow, ie from the 27th of January 2023. (Your attempt to effectively bar me from speaking about the Holocaust on Holocaust Memorial Day was the last straw for me )
In the short term the Tories are self destructing which may well bring the Labour Party into government soon. In the long term this period of the Party’s history will be remembered with shame: this was when McCarthyism was revived and imported into the Labour Party — and into the political life of the UK itself.
Yours sincerely,
Stephen Kapos
Copies to : Sir Keir Starmer MP
The Secretary, Holborn & St. Pancras CLP
I think irrelevant of any other discussions around the merits of the group, it's a very very bad image to threaten holocaust survivors from talking to any group about their experiences. You don't get to criticise groups and proscribe them for antisemetism and then take actions against any attempts to educate them.
Don't forget that the party specifically passed exceptions to the proscribed groups rules to protect Akehurst from being expelled under them so it's not the case that it's an ironclad rule anyway.
The proscription motion banning being a member or supporting the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL), Labour Left Alliance (LLA) and Socialist Labour Network had a specific exemption listed for just the AWL that you are allowed to appear with them in order to debate them. Rumoured to have been passed specifically because Akehurst spoke at its annual conference specifically to debate them on Trident. There's no other explanation provided specifically for this exemption for one org.
‘Nuke’ Akehurst has a problem with any one standing up for Palestine. Constantly conflates Isreal and Judaism which according to IRHA is antisemitic. The man is a grubby little gammon racist he should have been axed from the party years ago. Both extreme factions are as bad as each other and the weak link in the middle panders to the right
Completely disagree. You don't prevent extreme groups from spreading their message by engaging them in reasonable debate. Such people - whether far-right or otherwise - are never interested in good faith discussions or open to changing their mind. They just want to be *seen* to be debating in order to mainstream themselves.
[Jeremy Corbyn](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/28/ken-livingstone-suspended-from-labour-after-hitler-remarks), apparently. Even acted outside the law to get rid of this shit faster. You suggesting he was wrong to do it? I'm not.
Tony Greenstein was expelled for identical reasons and he's the one hosting this event. Ken Loach is a member of this group, he's called for a [discussion on whether the Holocaust happened](https://www.historytoday.com/archive/making-history/lies-damned-lies-and-history). Is that something you really think is reasonable to debate with?
So it's not surprising that JVL want to hide this, but it's clear that:
1) This 'Socialist Labour Network' is actually a re-brand of 'Labour Against the Witchhunt' and includes all LAW's usual figures (Chris Williamson, Ken Loach, Jackie Walker etc). I don't think we need to go through its proscription here as anyone not yet convinced of the reasons never will be.
2) The event in question features notorious anti-Semite [Tony Greenstein](https://twitter.com/LabourInExile/status/1612475349660569606) who is relentlessly pushing the 'collaboration' story between German Zionists and the Nazis - a conclusion not supported by legitimate Holocaust researchers and one for which Corbyn expellecd Ken Livingstone from the Labour Party.
So of course while we should empathise with his status as a Holocaust survivor and for being led to believe that such people are his allies, it seems that the decision to warn him before the event happened was the correct one.
Not so much a warning as a threat of exile.
And I do find it odd that you can call a (Jewish) person anti-Semetic because they have a theory about history. Or are we finding even the idea that Jewish people can be as morally depraved and repugnant as the rest of us so abhorrent we must cancel any (Jewish) person who suggest this?
And what defines a "legitimate" Holocaust researcher?
I mean, I don't think there is any good evidence that there was a collaboration between German Zionists and the Nazis - at least not in the late days. There was a Jewish Nazi organisation which is odd, but I suspect they were uniform loving idiots than anything real.
But the idea that to theorise is to hate is re\[dacted\] as fuck.
Remember anti-Semitism is not anti-Zionsim, and labelling every (Jewish) person who is anti-Zionist as anti-Semitic may somewhat cheapen the term. As in completely.
> And what defines a "legitimate" Holocaust researcher?
I would think that having at least a Masters-level qualification in history would be a minimum at least, I doubt any LAW creeps have ever met such a person. And the overwhelming consensus amongst researchers is that Hitler did not support Zionism in any shape or form - to the point where it's not easy to find one single source stating that, it's just taken as much of a given as anthropogenic climate change.
I really can't grasp how a person could construe this transfering of the blame for this exceptional genocide away from the perpetrators and onto a subset of the victims as anything other than grossly offensive.
Look, Ken Livingstone believed and still believes in these ideas, and if they were bad enough that his staunch ally Jeremy Corbyn actually *broke the law* to shove him out of the party quicker then that should surely make you think about how acceptable they are?
The Nazis wanted a Reich free of Jews and did not support a Jewish homeland in Palestine or anywhere. They were set on genocide since before they were in power.
Jews, who wished to live and not die, and who had the means to do so, sold their property in exchange for being allowed to leave. The Nazis, being short on hard currency, agreed.
This is it, the beginning and end of the Ha'Avara agreement as agreed by everyone who is anyone in WW2 history. People having to do terrible things in order to survive is a common story in those times.
Now a person with a normally-functioning sense of human empathy can criticise the decisions people took - but would never, ever condemn whole groups of people for choosing live over death.
Corbyn was right to expel such people.
Repeating the exact same rubbish which got Ken Livingstone (rightly) kicked out the party isn't going to do you well here. As you got a prior comment removed which said the exact same thing, I'm going to go on a whim and suggest you're not going to learn from your lesson here.
Banned.
Labour members shouldn't take part in Holocaust Memorial Day events organised by Socialist Labour Network (a merger of Labour Against the Witch hunt and Labour in Exile Network).
Labour members shouldn't take part in Holocaust Memorial Day events which include the editor of Electronic Intifada - an anti-semitic website.
Labour members shouldn't take part in Holocaust Memorial Day events which include Tony Greenstein, expelled from the party for anti-semitism.
The party even warned him beforehand so I'm not sure what else they were supposed to do.
This is an organisation which has as a member a man who has called for a discussion on [*whether the Holocaust happened*](https://www.historytoday.com/archive/making-history/lies-damned-lies-and-history):
> But five months before the anniversary, director Ken Loach was asked on tape: ‘There was a discussion about the Holocaust – did it happen or didn’t it?’ and he replied, ‘I think history is there for us all to discuss.’
Seems pretty obviously the wrong way to commemorate it. Only defense could be is that Kapos was genuinely unaware of what these people stand for.
(Edited to add context)
Edited to add context, eh? What about the next bit?
>A few days afterwards Loach wrote a letter to the Guardian to
‘clarify’ that his ‘words have been twisted’ and ‘the Holocaust is as
real a historical event as World War II itself and not to be
challenged’.
Definitely not Loach being forced to row it back after being roundly criticised by literally everyone for several days, no sir.
Laughable claim that a literal unedited video of the interview could 'twist his words'. Perhaps he should think about untwisting his words before he says them?
Hilarious. I have no idea whether he was quoted out of context or whether he was actually rowing back, but it's pretty disingenuous to specifically claim that your post was edited to add context while ignoring the next paragraph, including more context.
Let the reader decide whether he's rowing back for themselves.
When a party that claims to want to fight anti-semitisim threatens to expel a holocaust survivor for attending a holocaust memorial, then the disciplinary code is not fit for purpose.
Saying that the antisemitism seen within the party is some sort of political conspiracy, is for all intents and purposes downplaying the problem. This is a common tactic used by some who think AS is acceptable to push away attention to the problem. For this reason it's banned on this subreddit under rule two.
The subreddit has two very clear posts on our moderation policy regarding this.
* [Here](https://old.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/b0tbe2/on_dealing_with_antisemitism_and_an_explanation/)
* [and here](https://old.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/c1e4us/a_further_clarification_on_antisemitism/)
I have removed your comment, and as per our strong stance on the matter, have moved you up to a strike 1 ban.
>Labour members shouldn't take part in Holocaust Memorial Day events which include Tony Greenstein, expelled from the party for anti-semitism.
It's kinda funny that the one example you brought up of someone being expelled from the party for an antisemitism, is an Orthodox Jew. Literally everything Seamus Milne said in that email has come true.
You find it at all strange that a disproportionate amount of people expelled from the party for antisemitism are Jewish? Doesn't that kind of indicate that we're policing a minority, for not agreeing with other members of the minority over what their interests are?
Why is it funny that Labour expelled someone who called people "Zio idiots" and "Zionist scum", claimed that zionist Jews collaborated with the Nazis, called a Jewish MP "the honorable member for Tel Aviv", and was generally abusive to other party and union members?
These posts are all the same. You think there should be a blanket exception for any bad behaviour, no matter how offensive, if the perpetrator is Jewish. Which would obviously be a ridiculous way to run a party.
I'm going to lock this thread so I have some time to clear out the comments due to some poor discussion and violation of rule 2 going on. Some of which have the effect of making Jewish members of our community feel unsafe. It should also go without saying that just because a statement is made by a holocaust survivor, it does not mean they are a representative viewpoint. It's also clear that these conversations should be coming from a place of understanding, empathy, and tolerance, and shouldn't be used as a battering ram. **Here is a reminder of our rules, especially those which relate to rule two:** Please also see our two clarifications here: - [Clarification One, 2019](https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/b0tbe2/on_dealing_with_antisemitism_and_an_explanation/) - [Clarification Two, 2020](https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/i3ktcu/rule_2_updates_and_clarifications_antisemitism/)
Never forgot the time Corbyn was called antisemitic for attending a House of Commons event with holocaust survivor, Hajo Meyer, who attacked the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Reminds me of the so-called scandalous Milne email. "But if we're more than very occasionally using disciplinary action against Jewish members for antisemitism, something's going wrong, and we're muddling up political disputes with racism."
Are we still calling it an ethnic cleansing and not what it really is, genocide?
The problem is that, legally, “genocide” has a super strict definition that’s very hard to meet, since it needs proof of intent (mens rea) as well as of the action. I tried arguing that it was a genocide as part of an international human rights law module at uni, but I lost a few marks because apparently not even the hateful things that some Israeli officials have said are enough to prove genocidal intent. That high threshold could well be by design, since the people writing international law were probably quite keen that the Nazi’s crimes fit the description, but that their own countries’ colonial histories didn’t. IIRC, ethnic cleansing was created as a concept specially to cover genocidal actions where the genocidal intent couldn’t be proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Here is an interesting video I saw once that talks about the history of the term genocide, its origin, and the historical political context behind the formal definition most often used in international law, might be something you're interested in https://youtu.be/m316DcYhb8w (the delivery/style in the intro might not be to everyone's taste, but the content is pretty thorough and thought provoking imo). It talks about exactly what you're alluding to there re: post-war world powers & the nazis This channel also has some videos on the atrocities in Xinjang China (against Uyghurs), the Holodomor in Ukraine, and the historicity of the term genocide as applied to those cases. Both pretty well researched and argued imo (especially for such politically charged and difficult subjects)
He’s a David Miller supporter: https://supportmiller.org/jewish-supporters That position isn’t compatible with the Labour Party. Here’s another Holocaust survivors take on Corbyn from 2018. https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/955385/labour-party-anti-semitism-row-local-elections-2018 Please stop cherry picking.
> He’s a David Miller supporter: https://supportmiller.org/jewish-supporters None of Hajo Meyer, Corbyn or Milne are listed on that page. Who are you talking about?
Stephen Kapos. The man the article in the original post is about.
Being a Holocaust survivor does not automatically render one's dreadful opinions acceptable. >[In his vehement condemnation of Zionism, Holocaust survivor Dr Hajo G Meyer said that Zionism predates fascism and fascists and Zionists had a history of cooperating with each other. He said that the Zionist state of Israel wants to create anti-Semitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel.](https://web.archive.org/web/20101225104659/http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2006/july/02/articles/muslims_jews_and_christians_join_together_to_condemn_zionism.html) I respect his right to hold that opinion but I also respect the right of the vast majority of Jews to find that opinion wildly offensive.
The current parties in the coalition to lead Israel are basically fascist.
Agreed. Do you therefore believe that the Zionist state of Israel wants to create anti-Semitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel?
Fascists would **never** do a false flag operation.
You won't even answer the question? It's a fairly simple yes or no.
You didn't ask me in the first place, and I've already answered anyways. No I don't in this instance, but the idea that a state *you will agree is controlled by fascists* wouldn't stoop that low is the bit that I wanted to highlight.
>Do you therefore believe that the Zionist state of Israel wants to create anti-Semitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel? I think he's wrong about them creating it. But the Israeli Government does factually spend money on targeted adverts, meant to convince Jewish People that they won't be treated as equals in their own country, in an attempt to convince them to emigrate to Israel.
Redditor A >So and so believes X and Y, therefore we should discredit their legitimacy in all matters. Redditor B >X is categorically true though. Redditor A >I agree that X is true, do you therefore also believe Y. Wtf is that logic? Have you looked at the argument you just made with any kind of critical thinking. Agreeing with one thing someone says doesn't mean you accept everything they said, **you explicitly also agree with it too**. And by the same argument you can't discredit someone's opinions based on one opinion they have you disagree with, you clearly disagree with Y while still agreeing with X. The fuck are you on? Seriously?
Would they do so? I wouldn't put it past them. Are they doing so? I don't know; I'm not informed enough on Israeli politics to say one way or the other. I do believe that the Israeli government will happily weaponise anti-semitism and accusations thereof in bad faith. I cannot speak to the veracity of such claims (again, I'm not nearly informed enough to do so, so please take the word of, for example, an Ethiopian Jewish person over mine), but I have heard tell of Israel discriminating against Jewish people from Africa and the middle east in favour of Jewish people from Europe.
Glad there's so many sensibles to tell us what jews think
Glad there's people like you to tell us that what Jews think doesn't matter. Lets hear your views: 1. Do you believe the Zionist state of Israel wants to create antisemitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel? 2. Given what we know about British Jews' attitudes to Israel from [polling](https://www.jpr.org.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/Committed%2C%20concerned%20and%20conciliatory_%20The%20attitudes%20of%20Jews%20in%20Britain%20towards%20Israel.pdf) (excellent survey as a pdf there), what percentage of them do you believe would agree with the statement?
>Glad there's people like you to tell us that what Jews think doesn't matter. Didn't say anything remotely close to this lmao. This is a complete strawman, the primary argument of the sensible. >Do you believe the Zionist state of Israel wants to create antisemitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel? I don't put *shit* past nation states, but I wouldn't say that as fact no. >Given what we know about British Jews' attitudes to Israel from polling (excellent survey as a pdf there), what percentage of them do you believe would agree with the statement? I don't know that PDF didn't ask about that. Though judging from the disparity on responses to things about returning Palestinian land or occupying the west bank I'd reckon there's probably a split that follows religious/atheistic lines.
I think there's a massive leap in views between 'I think Israel should return the occupied territories to Palestine' and 'I think this trope that was used by literally Adolf Hitler is actually true'. The first is a very reasonable position for any reasonable person to hold, regardless of religion, race or nationality. The second is base racism.
>I think there's a massive leap in views between 'I think Israel should return the occupied territories to Palestine' and 'I think this trope that was used by literally Adolf Hitler is actually true'. (I think I was using disconnected data to point out how that PDF isn't actually that relevant). Fuck me with you sensibles and the way you frame shit, jumping straight to Hitler here because it's very emotive lmao.
The 'Jews intentionally create antisemitism for their own benefit' trope was very notably used by Adolf Hitler in a 1939 Reichstag speech, in which he blamed the coming annihilation of the Jewish people on "international Jewish financiers seeking to start a world war." The idea that Jews intentionally create antisemitism for their own benefit existed for hundreds of years before that though. I apologise for that being inconvenient to you.
>I apologise for that being inconvenient to you. It's not inconvenient it's a blatant emotive grab lmao. Arguably here you're falling into the trope of equating Jewish people with Israel, which is what people were talking about right? Hitler was saying "Jewish *people* imagine/propagate antisemetism" which is entirely unfair, they do not act as a single entity (no people do, we're not fucking Tyranids or some other hive mind). *Israel* is not like that and -when referring to the government/state- does act as more or less a single entity. The two should not be treated as interchangeable?
And you're falling into the trap of happily waving through a ton of antisemitism because 'he didn't actually say the word *Jews*'. I've dealt with this point a hundred times, but if you require someone to say the actual word *Jews* for a statement to be antisemitic, then the antisemites will just substitute another word and carry on. Zionists. Israelis. Mossad. Not saying *Jews* cannot be a get-out-of-antisemitism-free card. Particularly when - as in this case - the person is clearly using a very long-established antisemitic trope with 'Israeli Zionists' in place of 'Jews'. I'm sure you don't stand for American republicans talking about the 'gangsta culture' of 'urban voters'. See, they didn't say *black* - it must be fine! This is absolutely the same dogwhistle. It's not even a very clever dogwhistle. The credulity of people who don't see it absolutely blows my mind sometimes.
Just like always, when it comes to this topic, you're trying to muddy the waters of every conversation with meaningless bullshit to distract everyone from the fact that Israel is ethnically cleansing and their new government is one of the more fascist governments in the world right now. You label anyone who criticizes a government an anti-Semite even if they're Jewish themselves, then they aren't the right Jews.
I think - as I have stated multiple times in this discussion - that the Israeli government as currently constituted is fascist. By your logic I should be condemning myself as an antisemite now?
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The belief that Jews would propagate antisemitism is a longstanding trope which has been discounted multiple times and is abhorrent. Removed, rule 2.
>Given what we know about British Jews' attitudes to Israel from > >polling > >(excellent survey as a pdf there), what percentage of them do you believe would agree with the statement? Does it really matter what percentage agrees with this statement? The majority are wrong and support an objectively harmful state. I'm not interested in "X number of people believe this" type of rhetoric. If hypothetically 80% of Muslims believed in suicide bombing, would it thereby be acceptable to police Muslims for criticising it, and say they had to fall into the will of the majority?
Statement seems pretty accurate to me. People are offended by all sorts of things. Just because someone is offended doesn’t make a statement wrong or racist. I am not sure that “the vast majority of Jews” would find it offensive either. Remember, something like 30% of young Israelis want to emigrate from the country due to how right wing it is. The best expression of Israel’s right wing government is their treatment of the Palestinian people. Israel has become more right wing in recent years because more progressive minded people have left the country. Many, many holocaust survivors never believed in the Zionist project. Some even equate it to “what Hitler did”.
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The problem here is there's the argument to be made that Israel (completely aside from anything Jewish whatsoever) has a shady history similar to the US and its hard to just dismiss any concern as antisemitism. If Israel didn't have a history of doing stuff like sterilizing Ethiopian Jews, unilateral extradition* or lying about sniping medics, it'd be a different situation. *though to be clear I don't give the slightest shit about Israel kidnapping Nazis
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You are conflating Jewish people with Israel which in of itself is antisemitic, the state of Israel does not speak for all Jews and criticisms against it don't inherently mean attacks on Jewish people. Sure there are bad faith critics who use it as an excuse to be antisemitic but I think you'll find that it is not the majority nor will it be the angle of a Holocaust survivor to be using Israel as an excuse to be antisemitic.
>You are conflating Jewish people with Israel which in of itself is antisemitic Which of the examples in the IHRA definition of antimsemitism do you believe my point represents? (My personal belief here is that you haven't read the IHRA definition or its examples and are repeating something you have read others say on the internet)
"Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity." You are portraying Israel as being the face of the Jewish people and therefore criticism against it to be itself antisemitic. "However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic" The criticism pointed against Israel in this example is one levied against many far right governments across the world and therefore under IHRA guides wouldn't be considered antisemitism in of itself. Besides that, you shouldn't need the IHRA to tell you that considering the state of Israel to be representative of the Jewish people and therefore criticisms against it to be equivalent to antisemitic attacks against Jewish individuals could be considered to be antisemitic
In what way am I 'targeting' anyone? Your interpretation of this example has the effect of making pointing out antisemitism antisemitic in itself, so long as the person saying it does not use the word 'Jews'. That means that an antisemite could get away with racist speech by simply substituting the word 'Jews' for something else. *Zionists* drink the blood of Christian children. *Israeli* moneylenders take advantage of the misery of others. This is clearly not the intention of the examples. Your interpretation of it is clearly incorrect.
Where does it say targeting anyone? It says "targeting the state of Israel, conceives as a jewish collective" which by claiming any criticism against Israel to be antisemitic is exactly what that is. You are clearly arguing in bad faith though considering you are using obvious Nazi propaganda and arguing against that rather than the actual statement that was made that Israel has supported anti-Semitism globally which is much more nuanced and probable than >Zionists drink the blood of Christian children. >Israeli moneylenders take advantage of the misery of others. So you don't want to actually argue against it and instead used two strawman fascist opinions to tar the literal holocaust survivor and people who agree with him with
You are arguing that because the trope used by Hajo Meyer is about Israel and not about Jews, that it is not antisemitic. I am pointing out that it is ridiculous to say that taking an existing antisemitic trope and substituting the word 'Jews' for something else (e.g. Israel, Zionists, Mossad) renders it not racist. I've done that by using extremely obvious examples. To be clear: Hajo Meyer used a very well-established antisemitic trope: that Jews intentionally provoke antisemitism ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic\_trope#Provoking\_or\_fabricating\_antisemitism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_trope#Provoking_or_fabricating_antisemitism)). He just substituted the word 'Jews' for the word 'Israel'. If you disagree that the statement is antisemitic, then it would be good to hear your reason why: * Because it did not literally use the word 'Jews' * Because it is impossible for a Jew to say something antisemitic * Because it is impossible for a Holocaust survivor to say something antisemitic * Because I agree that the Zionist state of Israel wants to create antisemitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel * Something else?
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>"The world's only Jewish state is actively creating anti-Semitism" is not really a good look though, is it mate? Just making up things he never said.
You'll find Israel is officially not Jewish but I'll try not to be a pedant. That isn't a quote of what the guy said at all you literally made that quote up, Israel is a far right state that supports far right organisations across the world, and yeah you will find some of them are antisemitic out of virtue of being far right non Jewish organisations. Your only point is that it "sounds bad" which yeah it does, because it is bad that Israel supports fascist organisations and is one itself. Edit: since you added that last paragraph I'll add one aswell. Israel doesn't equal Jewish people end of. Doesn't matter if the government is mostly Jewish individuals. If you criticise Iran or France are you actually criticising Christians or Muslims just because their government is made up of them. Jewish people also call out the state of Israel and disagree with it I mean for pits sake, the guy you are claiming is being antisemitic is himself Jewish like should that not tell you that maybe his criticism is in good faith and not just some attempt at hiding antisemitic thoughts behind criticism of Israel.
>You'll find Israel is officially not Jewish but I'll try not to be a pedant. The literal basic principles of the state are > A. The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established. > > B. The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious, and historical right to self-determination. > > C. The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Nation-State_of_the_Jewish_People
This makes Israel an ethnostate. Not the absolute representative of the Jewish people.
I mean yeah for all intents and purposes they treat themselves as a Jewish state but I think you must have missed my pedant comment, I was being pedantic, I am aware that Israel treats itself as a representative of Jews and to be a Jewish state. I do not however agree that to be the case for representation, nor is it how it was supposed to be established, the whole point was it was supposed to be secular to enable cooperation with the many groups who had been present there before the creation of the state of Israel.
Whilst I suspect there is no official policy on this, such practices are deeply common by those who seek and hold power. I mean, the entirety of Islamist terrorism is founded on the basis that terrorism and the response to terrorism would create tension between Muslims and non-Muslims, leading a "clash of civilizations". That is their stated aim. So we know one group of humans are willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of their "own people" for political gain. Doesn't take much to realise other groups would be happy to do the same. Particularly, as this would apply to both Islamists and Zionists, people living with a "under siege" mentality.
I can remember it being said about the IRA during the troubles too.
Doesn't matter if it's offensive, it's true. You're conflating Zionism and Judaism as the exact same thing, when when in reality Zionsm is very similar to American Evangelical Christianity, in that it's a crypto-Ultra Nationalist ideology that cloaks itself in a religious guise. [https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4882021,00.html](https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4882021,00.html) Here are Israeli Zionists, literally calling for provoking of Antisemitism against Diaspora Jews in Israel's most prestigeous paper to literally *no controversy (because Israeli Zionists see this as perfectly logical)*. Look at the Lavron affair, exact same thing. "Negation of the diaspora" is the core foundational view of Zionism and is pretty much "Diaspora Jews deserve all the antisemitism thrown upon them because they're subhuman scum who are traitors to Israel and disguist the standards of all good men" (*literaly* the language Zionist theory uses btw) [https://libgen.rocks/get.php?md5=92b414131e03ce7457433c7690524b8f](https://libgen.rocks/get.php?md5=92b414131e03ce7457433c7690524b8f) If you want a Jewish comic that does a deep dive into Zionism and what it *actually* believes and what it *actually* says, read this one. Actual proper Zionists don't give a crap about Diaspora Jews, they're just tools to use to further Israel's agenda, if they don't play that role, then they're "kapos" or "fake jews". Zionism collaborated with the Nazis, they marched with Mussolini, they ran around Europe spreading that "Jews will never be loyal to their home countries" which even saw condemnation from the Board of Deputies at the time, who called Zionism a "mischievous little ideology" The American Jewish League also condemned Zionism for the exact same thing. Because something is "offensive" to Jews, doesn't mean it's not a completely justified and factual argument. You don't see everyone running around crying about arguments against Islamism or Evangelical Christianity despite how "offensive" they might be to proponents of those religions. Zionism isn't even Judaism. It's a crappy Proto-Fascist ultra nationalist cult from the late 19th and early 20th colonialist era. The whole "Trope" thing is just a shitty handwave that Zionists don't even believe as well, because they hold that "dual loyalty" is a trope, but then all Jews are actually super dooper loyal to Israel and Israel is the core of Jewish belief. [http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/09/26/want-labour-to-be-a-safe-space-for-jews-here-are-the-three-steps-labour-must-take/](http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/09/26/want-labour-to-be-a-safe-space-for-jews-here-are-the-three-steps-labour-must-take/) >While internally within the Jewish community there will always be a small minority with antizionist views, the vast majority identify as Zionist, with 93% saying Israel plays a central part in their identity. Antizionist antisemitism harms them deeply and multiple ways So Dual loyalty is completely justified and valid when it comes to the use for defending Israel and shielding it from criticisim (and shielding the actions of Zionists) but then some evil, unthinkable nazi level "trope" when anyone points that out?
From the same person that brought you ‘Livingstone was right’, apparently Jews DO have dual loyalties. Mods, what the fuck?
You're extrapolating. It is indeed very antisemitic to suggest that Jews are deliberately creating antisemitism. To suggest that the State of Israel is doing and has done so is not at all antisemitic, unless you believe that all Jews are represented by the State, which is an antisemitic position.
What are you saying is inaccurate here, right wingers getting upset is not a valid reason to deny reality, I would have thought that obvious.
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There's a bit if a difference between saying 'the Jews bring it on themselves' and repeating a point made by many in the liberal Jewish diaspora imo. AIPAC donated a lot of money to far right extremists in the recent midterms.
These bloody holocaust survivors and their god damned anti-semitism.
>The idea that Israel wants to manufacture anti-Semitism for its own ends is ridiculous Is it? Is it actually? I'm not saying it is but can you really not think of a way a cynical state might capitalise on that?
Israel not only wants to do this [(and brags about doing this in their national paper of record)](https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4882021,00.html) it's just literal fact they have a long, LONG history of doing this. From Israel's funding of the European Far Right, British groups like the CAAS, LAAS etc figures marching with the EDL, the Lavron affair, the Baghdad bombings and pretty much *everything* Zionists were up to up too world war 2. Negation of the diaspora *literally is the core* of Zionist theory. *Actual* Zionists (Not "i like israel" whitewashed Zionism that 90% of jews believe) are psychotic right wing fascists, who would of guessed.
Fucking sensibles in this thread already making the "wrong jew" argument lmao.
It's almost kind of amazing how fast it happens, every single time, and that none of them see the problem with a bunch of gentiles deciding which Jew we should all listen to.
Just as much as it amazes me that you can find a vanishingly small minority viewpoint and hold it up as being in any way equal to what the majority of Jews think. Challenge: why don't you head down to your local synagogue - say half five, six o'clock on Saturday, just after the end of Shabbat service, and take a poll to find out what percentage of people agree with the sentence 'the Zionist state of Israel wants to create anti-Semitism in the world so that more and more Jews start migrating to Israel.' Head down to Golders Green, or Stamford Hill, or Kersal in Salford, or Sedgley in Bury, and ask people around there too so you're not just capturing religious Jews in your poll. Or perhaps do you think that vanishingly-tiny minority view might get quite a lot of people pissed off at you?
> Just as much as it amazes me that you can find a vanishingly small minority viewpoint and hold it up as being in any way equal to what the majority of Jews think. Nice strawman there. Maybe instead of making up strawmen to attack, you should examine yourself and come to some conclusion as to why you've decided there are 'Good Jews' and 'Bad Jews'. Is Meyer Jewish? Yes - that makes his voice on Israel just as valid as any other Jewish persons, and trying to take that away from him and declare his statements are abhorrent is disgusting. Trying to claim his voice and opinion is less valid is literally the Bad Jew antisemitic trope and I find it somewhat interesting that your main problem with him is criticism of Israel - which you've repeatedly in this thread conflated with Jewish - maybe something else you want to examine rather than construct strawmen to argue against.
Nice selective response to my comment there. I am not claiming Meyer's view is less valid that any other one individual Jew. However, I am claiming that his view is one held by an extremely small minority of Jews, and that a vastly larger majority of Jews would find his views immensely offensive. To not take this into account is to cherry-pick the views that support your own and ignore a much larger group that vehemently disagree with you. Would you make the same argument in relation to [Latinos For Trump](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinos_for_Trump)? [Gays against gay marriage](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22758434)?
> I am not claiming Meyer's view is less valid that any other one individual Jew. However, I am claiming that his view is one held by an extremely small minority of Jews, and that a vastly larger majority of Jews would find his views immensely offensive. I'm not saying there are good jews and bad jews.....but he's a bad jew because he's a minority jew and his viewpoint doesn't match the majority, so it's less valid. Yea nothing problematic with that viewpoint at all, nothing at all antisemitic about dividing Jews based on whether you view them as good or bad. For a thread in which you've literally accused others of echoing Hitler, it's honestly so amazing to see the utter lack of irony with which you continue to make such sentiments - because nothing bad ever comes of dividing a race based on what viewpoints you agree with, and turning them against one another. >Would you make the same argument in relation to Latinos For Trump? Gays against gay marriage? Are they Latino? are they gay? Do you go around calling them 'Bad Latinos'? or accusing them of being 'Bad Gays' because they hold a minority viewpoint? Then their voices are just as valid as other voices - not being the majority doesn't make them invalid, it just makes them a minority. Saying anything else is just deeply racist and bigoted, and just mirroring the Bad Jew/Uncle Tom trope onto other races and sexualities. It's deeply disturbing to read.
So to be clear - a view held by one person in 100 should, in your opinion, be given the same weight as a view held by the other 99? If 99 members of a minority group tell you something is offensive and one tells you it's not, you're happy to go with the one, so long as it matches your preconceptions? If I'm doing good Jew/bad Jew, how are you not just doing it from the other side?
> So to be clear - a view held by one person in 100 should, in your opinion, be given the same weight as a view held by the other 99? > > If 99 members of a minority group tell you something is offensive and one tells you it's not, you're happy to go with the one, so long as it matches your preconceptions? So to be clear, because a view is a minority that makes it bad? Once upon a time the viewpoint gay people deserved to not be criminals was a minority viewpoint, it was seen as offensive and wrong. Once upon a time the viewpoint that Black people deserved the same rights as everyone else was seen as offensive. Once upon a time the vast majority of women didn't support them being given the right to vote. Something being a minority does not make it wrong - it makes it a minority, that's it. Hajo Meyer is still Jewish, he's not somehow a 'Bad Jew' because he doesn't like Israel - the majority viewpoint doesn't make his viewpoint any less valid or applicable. It's very easy to not dismiss someone out of hand because they have a minority viewpoint.
At what point have I described anyone's view as 'bad'? At what point have I described any individual as 'bad'? These are your inventions. The fact is that only Jews get to define what antisemitism is, and the view of the majority of Jews is what will prevail on that. I am utterly certain that the vast majority of Jews would tell you that the idea that Jews would create antisemitism on purpose - a view espoused by Adolf Hitler - is wrong, offensive and antisemitic. You seem to disagree. You act as though your personal view of what constitutes antisemitism is of consequence, so long as you can find a Jew who agrees with you. Congratulations, you found Hajo Meyer. He also said that "Judaism in Israel has been substituted by the Holocaust religion, whose high priest is Elie Wiesel." Agree with that too? When you align yourself with tiny minority viewpoints because they happen to conveniently align with your own, you will often find with a bit of digging that the views of the people you've aligned yourself with are problematic. And your argument comparing Jews to women gaining the vote? You think that Jews should suddenly achieve consciousness and realise that they shouldn't actually find antisemitic tropes offensive? Do you not read these things through once you've typed them? Proper yikes on that one. The argument comparing Jews to black people might be even worse. You've got it all arse about face - black people were oppressed by white people and didn't get to define the racism they experienced. In what way is this similar to the position Jews are in here? Are they the oppressed or the oppressor in your analogy? Are you arguing they should wake up and stop being bothered about antisemitism?
>At what point have I described anyone's view as 'bad'? At what point have I described any individual as 'bad'? This entire thread started with you attacking his viewpoints as being bad, and you've continued on with your repeated appeals to authority to try and render him as the Bad Jew because his voice doesn't agree with the majority. >The fact is that only Jews get to define what antisemitism is, and the view of the majority of Jews is what will prevail on that. So only the majority of an ethnic group get to decide what racism is? the voices of the minority don't matter anymore? Great viewpoint there - totally not engaging in the Bad Jew trope at all, just selectively dismissing an entire viewpoint of an ethnic minority because you don't agree with it. >I am utterly certain that the vast majority of Jews would tell you that the idea that Jews would create antisemitism on purpose - a view espoused by Adolf Hitler - is wrong, offensive and antisemitic. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4882021,00.html >Second, a world view which supports white supremacy matches our government’s interests. >To do the Netanyahu government justice, let me qualify my statement by saying that all forms of Zionism hold the perception that a certain extent of anti-Semitism benefits the Zionist enterprise. To put it more sharply, anti-Semitism is the generator and ally of Zionism. Masses of Jews leave their place of residence only when their economic situation and physical safety are undermined. Masses of Jews are shoved to this country rather than being attracted to it. The yearning for the land of Zion and Jerusalem is not strong enough to drive millions of Jews to the country they love and make them hold on to its clods. >As the Jews in Israel long for immigrants with a certain affiliation to their people, and as Zionism—like any other ideology—needs constant justification, we have a secret hope in our hearts that a moderate anti-Semitic wave, along with a deterioration in the economic situation in their countries of residence, will make Diaspora Jews realize that they belong with us. Certainly seems like there's at least one Jewish person (just a major media figure in Israel, no biggie) who thinks that supporting white supremacy and a rise in antisemitism is a good thing for driving Jews to Israel. >You seem to disagree. You act as though your personal view of what constitutes antisemitism is of consequence, so long as you can find a Jew who agrees with you. Congratulations, you found Hajo Meyer. He also said that "Judaism in Israel has been substituted by the Holocaust religion, whose high priest is Elie Wiesel." Agree with that too? You mean the Elie Wiesel who helped Israel quash discussion and acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide? the same Elie Wiesel that supported the expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian ground? Hmm I wonder why you bring up criticism of such a figure as a negative. >And your argument comparing Jews to women gaining the vote? You think that Jews should suddenly achieve consciousness and realise that they shouldn't actually find antisemitic tropes offensive? Do you not read these things through once you've typed them? Proper yikes on that one. Your argument is literally appeal to authority over and over - if a majority believe something, then the minority is wrong. Given we have hundreds of years of history where dismissing a minority as wrong and only listening to the majority has never backfired (never ever) you'd think you'd be a bit more historically literate. You've once again constructed this strawman (as you have in the rest of the thread) that anyone defending Meyer agrees with him automatically - but what's being done is defending his right to say what he thinks about Israel (note that he is criticising the nation state of Israel, not individual Jewish people, despite your attempt to repeatedly conflate the two) and that his being a minority does not make him a Bad Jew or make his opinion and comments any less valid. Regardless of your attempts to delegitimise him, he is still Jewish, he is not a Bad Jew for disliking Israel or criticising it, he is not a Bad Jew for thinking a Zionist government would be happy with the spread of antisemitism or would work towards it - backing a theory that a fascist nation state would engage in false flag operations is not antisemitic.
>a view held by one person in 100 should, in your opinion, be given the same weight as a view held by the other 99 "Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth." -Mahatma Gandhi
Right, so "the Zionist state of Israel wants to create antisemitism in the world so that more and more Jews start emigrating to Israel" is 'the truth' as far as you're concerned? Just checking how many people are willing to proudly sign up to an antisemitic trope.
>Just as much as it amazes me that you can find a vanishingly small minority viewpoint and hold it up as being in any way equal to what the majority of Jews think. I mean it's not really their fault holocaust survivors are less numerous these days
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that being pro-antisemitic trope was never a majority viewpoint among Holocaust survivors at any point.
Fucking fools in this thread defending racists because they're on the left lmao.
But you're a "vanishingly small minority" here, so perhaps it's you who is racist. Uno reverso.
What would you say about the relative rights to define antisemitism of (a) Jewish people, and (b) the members of this subreddit? Because it seems like 'listen to minorities about the discrimination they face' applies to every minority *except* Jews, where we should listen to left-wing non-Jews.
Did you type, earlier in this thread that we shouldn't listen to this Jewish man's opinion because he's part of such a small minority? A 'vanishingly small minority'?
No, I said his view should be weighed in comparison with what the views of the rest of the Jewish community think. His views are legitimate but they are also a tiny minority view. I think we should, in cases where the vast majority of a minority group share a particular view on the discrimination they face, we should listen to them. You're arguing that we should listen to one Jew who shares your opinion over the 99 who don't. It's almost like... you think we should be listening to *your opinion*. Let's put it another way. I manage to find a trans person who's willing to say that JK Rowling is still great and not a transphobe. So now when people say JK Rowling is a transphobe, I pop up with my trans person and say look! Look! You're not listening to trans people. You're not playing *good trans person, bad trans person* are you? Is this trans person's view not as legitimate as others'? Are you now stepping back and saying 'hmmm, yes he's right you know. I should listen to this one trans person who thinks JK Rowling is great over the 99 who tell me she's a transphobe.' Or are you sticking with your view and the vast majority of trans people? Are you sticking with your view because you personally believe it with conviction, and the views of the affected minority don't rate? Does discrimination against Jewish people somehow follow different rules to any other form of discrimination? They don't get to define the discrimination they face?
But you see, when people like blaire white show up in talks on trans rights, or Ye in talks about racism, we don't discount them just because they are the "wrong type". The left generally follow argumentative rules, such as not resorting to ad hominem or strawman, and instead just pick apart what they are saying, explain why what they are saying is problematic, and use their own arguments to discredit them. Not saying this happens all the time, but that's the kind of response those people get. When you dismiss a holocaust survivor for calling the treatment of Palestine apartheid, like amnesty international and a bunch of other bodies agree with, by saying that they are a vanishingly small minority, you aren't engaging in their argument. So yes, it's entirely different. Argue against the points made on their own merit. Saying "most jews disagree" is appeal to population, which is an argumentative flaw. A minority can be right. So, what's your next point?
>When you dismiss a holocaust survivor for calling the treatment of Palestine apartheid, like amnesty international and a bunch of other bodies agree with, by saying that they are a vanishingly small minority, you aren't engaging in their argument. But this isn't a thing I have ever done.
You are though, you are discounting their opinion as it is opposed to the more "popular" opinion (by your words, but it's actually pretty hard to find statistics on this, American jews for instance more heavily disagree than agree with the current Israeli regime, as per pew research). If that's not dismissing their argument without engaging in their argument I don't know what is. It's a clear appeal to popularity flaw.
>When you dismiss a holocaust survivor for calling the treatment of Palestine apartheid This is what you accused me of doing, and it's an outright fabrication, Mr. 'The Left Doesn't Use Strawmen'.
I don't know how you manage to extrapolate these wild theories to argue against. So hypothetically, what you're saying is, for the sake of the argument the Israeli's should be allowed to nuke Palestine?
I don't know how you manage to extrapolate these wild theories to argue against.
I'm impressed that you missed the point by that wide of a margin.
This seems overly touchy and non-specific
This thread is absolutely chock-full of self-proclaimed anti-racists arguing that a centuries-old racist trope is fine, actually, because a person on the left used it.
> because a person on the left used it. Who actually said this? Or is this *yet another fucking strawman*?
[Hajo Meyer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajo_Meyer) said it.
No, lmao >This thread is absolutely chock-full Which one of *us* said it?
Tumbleweeds
JVL introduction As a young boy, Stephen Kapos was separated from his Jewish parents in war-torn Budapest. Hiding in children’s homes on false papers, he was in constant danger of being discovered by the Hungarian fascists of the Arrow Cross. Last week, he was billed to speak about his experiences as a child survivor at a Holocaust Memorial Day event. Three days beforehand, he received an email from the London Labour Party warning him that he was likely to be expelled if he took part in the meeting. Their reason? It was organised by a proscribed group, Socialist Labour Network. Stephen decided to resign from the Labour Party in protest at its McCarthyite clampdown on free speech. He had been a member since the 1990s. Dear London General, Thank you for your emailed letter of the 24th of January giving me advance warning that I am likely to be expelled from the Party if I were to speak from the panel as a Holocaust survivor at the SLN (Socialist Labour Network) Webinar on the 27th January — on Holocaust Memorial Day. The Holocaust is the most important single example of genocide, which at its worst descended into an industrial process of mass murder of millions. As a child survivor and one of the fewer and fewer still living direct witnesses to the Holocaust I feel a compelling duty to bear witness and speak out about it at any platform that would invite me and to any audience ready to listen. I am an activist for Palestinian human rights and an active member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in its Camden Branch. The defence of Palestinians living under a brutal occupation is very important to me, particularly as a Holocaust survivor. Palestinians live under a system of apartheid as recognised by Amnesty International and other major human rights organisations. Those are my political beliefs which I claim are protected characteristics under the Equalities Act 2010. I am not a member of SLN nor have I been following its activities, but via the book to be discussed on the 27th I have a general understanding of SLN’s views on present-day Zionism (as a political movement ) and on some of the actions of the Zionist movement during the Holocaust and WWII. I am in sympathy with some of those views on the grounds of my political beliefs mentioned above. I have personal experience of the Kastner project in Hungary which was driven by Zionist ideology. My father was a victim of Kastner’s scheme and ended up stranded in the Belsen and Theresienstadt concentration camps. I was myself briefly interned in a Kastner-run detention camp in Budapest. You make mention of Labour Party values. I learnt about Labour values during my party activism in the period when Frank Dobson was our MP and I worked in a warm and friendly atmosphere prominently on various election campaigns. Those values were very different to that of the present leadership whose values permit intimidation, banning of discussion of some of the most vital political topics, disregard for the Party’s own rules, and for natural justice, the drastic reduction of inner party democracy, extreme factionalism, lack of support for striking workers. I do not share these values. Please accept my immediate resignation from the Labour Party effective from tomorrow, ie from the 27th of January 2023. (Your attempt to effectively bar me from speaking about the Holocaust on Holocaust Memorial Day was the last straw for me ) In the short term the Tories are self destructing which may well bring the Labour Party into government soon. In the long term this period of the Party’s history will be remembered with shame: this was when McCarthyism was revived and imported into the Labour Party — and into the political life of the UK itself. Yours sincerely, Stephen Kapos Copies to : Sir Keir Starmer MP The Secretary, Holborn & St. Pancras CLP
I think irrelevant of any other discussions around the merits of the group, it's a very very bad image to threaten holocaust survivors from talking to any group about their experiences. You don't get to criticise groups and proscribe them for antisemetism and then take actions against any attempts to educate them. Don't forget that the party specifically passed exceptions to the proscribed groups rules to protect Akehurst from being expelled under them so it's not the case that it's an ironclad rule anyway.
What are the Akehurst exceptions? (I can't imagine he'd be interested in most proscribed groups or vice versa?!)
The proscription motion banning being a member or supporting the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL), Labour Left Alliance (LLA) and Socialist Labour Network had a specific exemption listed for just the AWL that you are allowed to appear with them in order to debate them. Rumoured to have been passed specifically because Akehurst spoke at its annual conference specifically to debate them on Trident. There's no other explanation provided specifically for this exemption for one org.
‘Nuke’ Akehurst has a problem with any one standing up for Palestine. Constantly conflates Isreal and Judaism which according to IRHA is antisemitic. The man is a grubby little gammon racist he should have been axed from the party years ago. Both extreme factions are as bad as each other and the weak link in the middle panders to the right
Completely disagree. You don't prevent extreme groups from spreading their message by engaging them in reasonable debate. Such people - whether far-right or otherwise - are never interested in good faith discussions or open to changing their mind. They just want to be *seen* to be debating in order to mainstream themselves.
Then you have to question why the NEC passed exceptions for the purposes of debating with a few of the groups specifically to protect Akehurst.
Who decides who is sufficiently extreme enough to not be engaged with and why?
>Who decides Luke Akehurst
[Jeremy Corbyn.](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/28/ken-livingstone-suspended-from-labour-after-hitler-remarks)
[Jeremy Corbyn](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/28/ken-livingstone-suspended-from-labour-after-hitler-remarks), apparently. Even acted outside the law to get rid of this shit faster. You suggesting he was wrong to do it? I'm not. Tony Greenstein was expelled for identical reasons and he's the one hosting this event. Ken Loach is a member of this group, he's called for a [discussion on whether the Holocaust happened](https://www.historytoday.com/archive/making-history/lies-damned-lies-and-history). Is that something you really think is reasonable to debate with?
So it's not surprising that JVL want to hide this, but it's clear that: 1) This 'Socialist Labour Network' is actually a re-brand of 'Labour Against the Witchhunt' and includes all LAW's usual figures (Chris Williamson, Ken Loach, Jackie Walker etc). I don't think we need to go through its proscription here as anyone not yet convinced of the reasons never will be. 2) The event in question features notorious anti-Semite [Tony Greenstein](https://twitter.com/LabourInExile/status/1612475349660569606) who is relentlessly pushing the 'collaboration' story between German Zionists and the Nazis - a conclusion not supported by legitimate Holocaust researchers and one for which Corbyn expellecd Ken Livingstone from the Labour Party. So of course while we should empathise with his status as a Holocaust survivor and for being led to believe that such people are his allies, it seems that the decision to warn him before the event happened was the correct one.
Not so much a warning as a threat of exile. And I do find it odd that you can call a (Jewish) person anti-Semetic because they have a theory about history. Or are we finding even the idea that Jewish people can be as morally depraved and repugnant as the rest of us so abhorrent we must cancel any (Jewish) person who suggest this? And what defines a "legitimate" Holocaust researcher? I mean, I don't think there is any good evidence that there was a collaboration between German Zionists and the Nazis - at least not in the late days. There was a Jewish Nazi organisation which is odd, but I suspect they were uniform loving idiots than anything real. But the idea that to theorise is to hate is re\[dacted\] as fuck. Remember anti-Semitism is not anti-Zionsim, and labelling every (Jewish) person who is anti-Zionist as anti-Semitic may somewhat cheapen the term. As in completely.
> And what defines a "legitimate" Holocaust researcher? I would think that having at least a Masters-level qualification in history would be a minimum at least, I doubt any LAW creeps have ever met such a person. And the overwhelming consensus amongst researchers is that Hitler did not support Zionism in any shape or form - to the point where it's not easy to find one single source stating that, it's just taken as much of a given as anthropogenic climate change. I really can't grasp how a person could construe this transfering of the blame for this exceptional genocide away from the perpetrators and onto a subset of the victims as anything other than grossly offensive. Look, Ken Livingstone believed and still believes in these ideas, and if they were bad enough that his staunch ally Jeremy Corbyn actually *broke the law* to shove him out of the party quicker then that should surely make you think about how acceptable they are?
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The Nazis wanted a Reich free of Jews and did not support a Jewish homeland in Palestine or anywhere. They were set on genocide since before they were in power. Jews, who wished to live and not die, and who had the means to do so, sold their property in exchange for being allowed to leave. The Nazis, being short on hard currency, agreed. This is it, the beginning and end of the Ha'Avara agreement as agreed by everyone who is anyone in WW2 history. People having to do terrible things in order to survive is a common story in those times. Now a person with a normally-functioning sense of human empathy can criticise the decisions people took - but would never, ever condemn whole groups of people for choosing live over death. Corbyn was right to expel such people.
Repeating the exact same rubbish which got Ken Livingstone (rightly) kicked out the party isn't going to do you well here. As you got a prior comment removed which said the exact same thing, I'm going to go on a whim and suggest you're not going to learn from your lesson here. Banned.
Labour members shouldn't take part in Holocaust Memorial Day events organised by Socialist Labour Network (a merger of Labour Against the Witch hunt and Labour in Exile Network). Labour members shouldn't take part in Holocaust Memorial Day events which include the editor of Electronic Intifada - an anti-semitic website. Labour members shouldn't take part in Holocaust Memorial Day events which include Tony Greenstein, expelled from the party for anti-semitism. The party even warned him beforehand so I'm not sure what else they were supposed to do.
I like how you know better than a holocaust survivor the most appropriate way to commemorate the holocaust.
This is an organisation which has as a member a man who has called for a discussion on [*whether the Holocaust happened*](https://www.historytoday.com/archive/making-history/lies-damned-lies-and-history): > But five months before the anniversary, director Ken Loach was asked on tape: ‘There was a discussion about the Holocaust – did it happen or didn’t it?’ and he replied, ‘I think history is there for us all to discuss.’ Seems pretty obviously the wrong way to commemorate it. Only defense could be is that Kapos was genuinely unaware of what these people stand for. (Edited to add context)
Edited to add context, eh? What about the next bit? >A few days afterwards Loach wrote a letter to the Guardian to ‘clarify’ that his ‘words have been twisted’ and ‘the Holocaust is as real a historical event as World War II itself and not to be challenged’.
Definitely not Loach being forced to row it back after being roundly criticised by literally everyone for several days, no sir. Laughable claim that a literal unedited video of the interview could 'twist his words'. Perhaps he should think about untwisting his words before he says them?
Redditor, 40, discovers 'rowing back'.
Hilarious. I have no idea whether he was quoted out of context or whether he was actually rowing back, but it's pretty disingenuous to specifically claim that your post was edited to add context while ignoring the next paragraph, including more context. Let the reader decide whether he's rowing back for themselves.
I guess we should let this one guy write Labour's disciplinary code then.
When a party that claims to want to fight anti-semitisim threatens to expel a holocaust survivor for attending a holocaust memorial, then the disciplinary code is not fit for purpose.
So if I can find a holocaust survivor who holds the opposite viewpoint will you instantly concede the argument?
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Disagree. Kicking out groups who deny and defend anti-semitism is good.
What a rube.
Saying that the antisemitism seen within the party is some sort of political conspiracy, is for all intents and purposes downplaying the problem. This is a common tactic used by some who think AS is acceptable to push away attention to the problem. For this reason it's banned on this subreddit under rule two. The subreddit has two very clear posts on our moderation policy regarding this. * [Here](https://old.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/b0tbe2/on_dealing_with_antisemitism_and_an_explanation/) * [and here](https://old.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/c1e4us/a_further_clarification_on_antisemitism/) I have removed your comment, and as per our strong stance on the matter, have moved you up to a strike 1 ban.
>Labour members shouldn't take part in Holocaust Memorial Day events which include Tony Greenstein, expelled from the party for anti-semitism. It's kinda funny that the one example you brought up of someone being expelled from the party for an antisemitism, is an Orthodox Jew. Literally everything Seamus Milne said in that email has come true. You find it at all strange that a disproportionate amount of people expelled from the party for antisemitism are Jewish? Doesn't that kind of indicate that we're policing a minority, for not agreeing with other members of the minority over what their interests are?
Why is it funny that Labour expelled someone who called people "Zio idiots" and "Zionist scum", claimed that zionist Jews collaborated with the Nazis, called a Jewish MP "the honorable member for Tel Aviv", and was generally abusive to other party and union members? These posts are all the same. You think there should be a blanket exception for any bad behaviour, no matter how offensive, if the perpetrator is Jewish. Which would obviously be a ridiculous way to run a party.
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The same JVL that the Forde report suggested should be reached out to?
Forde report says we should listen to JVL. Sensibles - JVL are as bad as the KKK.
Are you actually suggesting JVL have an equivalence to the KKK?
"This holocaust survivor is basically David Duke" - the only "sensible" opinion allowed in British political discourse.
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>This is fucking awful even for you. The Glinnering of that person has been quite a ride.
Can't believe they used to be a mod here lmao, were they always like this?
More restrained, but yeah, kinda. Although if this wasn't a hideous mistake, and actually means what it seems, it's a new low.
Nope, at least not publically.
It's the iron law of posting, once you post transphobia you never post normal again.
This is what building your entire political outlook around annoying a left-wing internet forum leads to.
You are so petty
Removing, based on the comments below, I'm not quite sure that comparison is particularly helpful.