‘Blindness, evasions and double standards’
I ATTENDED the Jewish leadership meeting with Jeremy Corbyn in April, and told the Labour leader that the bitter arguments over IHRA’s antisemitism definition epitomise the disgraceful blindness, evasions and double standards of the anti-Israel left towards Jews and our concerns.
I am not surprised Labour has now publicly rejected the definition, but the brazen chutzpah with which they have done it is still remarkable.
Let me explain how we got here and what it reveals about this Labour leadership’s hostility to mainstream Jewish communities.
IHRA is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Thirty-one countries are members, committed to combatting antisemitism and preserving Holocaust memory. IHRA’s antisemitism definition is used by many governments, more than 130 local councils, police, the CPS and judiciary.
The IHRA definition is nearly identical to the definition issued in 2005 by the EU’s Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia. It drafted the definition because of rapidly worsening antisemitism across Europe. Mike Whine MBE, CST’s international director, was one of the Jewish advisers for the definition. In 2016, IHRA took on the job.
Unlike Labour’s charade, the definition was written to help those suffering and fearing antisemitism. The EU was not lecturing Jews on antisemitism, nor sweeping it under the procedural carpet, while pointing accusingly at those daring to disagree.
The definition is a single document but Labour treats it as having two parts. First, a paragraph that says antisemitism may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. This is so obvious, even Labour’s leadership accepts it. Next, 11 bullet point “examples” that “could, taking into account the overall context” be antisemitic. This is where the argument lies, with Labour rewriting the Israelrelated points, moving them to another section of its own definition, wrapping them in ambiguity and wanting antisemitic “intent” to be evidenced.
Labour wants to strip Israel from the definition of antisemitism but the IHRA definition includes it because anti-Israel hatred is so important to contemporary antisemitism.
This is not theoretical. It is exactly what drove the need for the definition in 2005. Since then, the need has worsened and far-left groups have said nothing and done nothing.
They could not care less that Europe cannot protect and keep its Jews, not even before the last Holocaust survivors die of old age. They have always, however, cared obsessively about the antisemitism definition, repeatedly and disgracefully claiming that its primary purpose is to make “criticism” of Israel illegal.
This, despite all the antisemitism statistics, despite the definition clearly stating criticism “cannot be regarded as antisemitic” and despite its caveat about “context” being needed. Their sub-text, sometimes explicit, more often implicit, but always lurking, is that Jews cannot be trusted, that local Jewish communities are ultimately just liars acting on behalf of Israel and/ or Zionism. It is a gross understatement to say such attitudes contradict basic anti-racist principles and ethics, but they utterly dominate the circles in which Jeremy Corbyn has spent his political lifetime.
I made these points in the Corbyn meeting, pushing him and his spin doctor Seumas Milne to fully adopt the definition. Mr Milne said his problem lay in the second half of the bullet point that says “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, eg by claiming the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour”.
Essentially, Mr Milne wanted to safeguard the accusation that Israel (and perhaps therefore its supporters?) is fundamentally racist. Labour’s new definition achieves this. It also removes IHRA’s protection against accusing Jews of being more loyal to Israel or other Jews than they are of their own countries. It goes further still, also removing IHRA’s protection from comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.
Ultimately, our communal leadership did not call a demonstration against Labour because we wanted faster disciplinary processes or legalistic definitions. We demonstrated against Labour because of its culture, which the IHRA rejection is now fundamental to. It represents and repeats the same far-left ideological, emotional and systematic rejection of our concerns that we have faced for decades.
Mark Gardner is CST Director of Communications