Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on November 23, 2021

For the Labour Party, the scars of anti-Semitism will take a long time to heal. Nevertheless, Keir Starmer cannot be faulted for the energy and commitment he has brought to righting the wrongs perpetrated by the party under his predecessor.

Now that normal service has been resumed in the party following five catastrophic years under Jeremy Corbyn, it is easy to forget just how bad things got for British Jews when he was in charge, when his hard-Left fellow travellers were given license to unleash their pent-up hatred against the worlds only Jewish state and those who supported it.

Labour MPs as well as activists people who had devoted their entire lives to fighting Labours cause felt obliged to abandon their party after suffering horrendous abuse because of their ethnicity. Bitter, unreconstructed anti-Semites who had spent their lives on the isolated far Left fringes of politics suddenly felt welcome in the Labour Party after Corbyn became leader, and duly thereafter sought to make life miserable for Jewish members and elected officials.

Those scars will take years to heal. The veteran ex-MP Louise Ellman, hounded out of her party by the vicious anti-Jewish sentiment of Labour activists in her Liverpool constituency, made an emotional return to the fold at this years Labour conference, publicly welcomed back by Starmer in a moving segment of his speech. But there are many others who still dont feel welcome, who have become pariahs in the eyes of old comrades for the unforgivable crime of turning against Labour when it turned against Jews. My party, right or wrong remains a fundamental principle among many members, even MPs and if theyre not careful it could one day serve as Labours epitaph.

But Starmer has delivered on his early promise to steer the party away from anti-Semitism and to introduce a zero-tolerance approach. He went further than many expected yesterday when, in a speech to the annual lunch of Labour Friends of Israel, he rejected the BDS (Boycott, Disinvest and Sanctions) movement as counterproductive and wrong.

Significantly, his words came at about the same time that Scotlands First Minister was wholeheartedly embracing the BDS movement, no doubt delighting the extremists in her own party who wield a disproportionate amount of power and influence, given their numbers. Nicola Sturgeon has offered to meet Scottish Jewish students, who have compared her support for restricting Scotlands trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank with the desecration of synagogues.

There is absolutely no case for claiming that Sturgeon herself is anti-Semitic, although an official statement from the First Minister unfortunately emulated Corbyns own preferred form of words, reassuring the nation of the Scottish Governments commitment to confronting anti-Semitism and racism in all its forms. Alas, there was no confirmation as to the proximity of Sturgeons parents to the Battle of Cable Street.

Jewish students are perplexed and angry because the SNP have singled out Israel for special attention and criticism. No calls for sanctions have been made against Iran for the practice of hanging men from cranes for the crime of being gay. No criticism is raised of Chinas territorial ambitions towards Taiwan or its treatment of Tibet. Neither has Putins annexation of Crimea and further threats against Ukraine resulted in even the mildest reproof from the SNP. India remains a valued international partner of Scotland, despite Pakistans claim to sovereignty over Kashmir.

So what is it about Israel, I wonder, that marks it out as a particular target for criticism and economic sanctions? Its a real mystery.

When Labour, under Corbyn, was making life a living hell for its Jewish MPs, the general public were disapproving and the media was unforgiving of Corbyns weasel words. Corbyn must now gaze northwards with envy as Sturgeon chooses to make life difficult for Scotlands Jewish community with hardly a word of protest raised from any quarter least of all Scottish Labour.

The First Minister has form in this regard. Further to the Left of her predecessor former ally and close friend and mentor, Alex Salmond she is only too happy to embrace any niche hard-Left cause, whether it be trans rights, anti-Israeli rhetoric or nuclear unilateralism. When it comes to service delivery, the SNP have failed pretty comprehensively, but few parties can match their efficiency at ticking all the right boxes.

None of this should detract from Starmers determination to rid his party and our country of anti-Semitism. The biggest difference between him and Sturgeon is not their different approaches to Israel, but the formers determination to take a principled stand even in the face of criticism from some on the Left. The First Minister, on the other hand, enjoys too much the approbation of the Israel haters.

She is lucky that in Scotland, few people are asking about the real target of that hatred.

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If only the SNP shared Keir Starmer's determination to root out anti-Semitism - Telegraph.co.uk

Category: Anti-semitism
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