As a talking point for debate it might be productive. The problem arises from the government of the United Kingdom ‘adopting’ IHRA’s definition of antisemitism in a quasi-official manner.
A former specialist adviser to the House of Commons Social Services Committee has written a detailed critique of the Home Affairs Committee’s Report on anti-Semitism. We find out why.
It is how texts are read, not texts themselves that determine meaning. Applying this post-modernist lesson to the Chakrabarti and Home Affairs Committee antisemitism reports yields new political possibilities.
The real problem is that anti-Semitism has become an integral part of Palestinian and Arab nationalism, imported from the west.
A distinction must in all cases be made between the state and civil society.
“How are we to understand the amazing increase in rhetoric about antisemitism, quite divorced from any actually discernible increase in antisemitism itself?”
Jeremy Corbyn has shared platforms with some arguably dubious people, but we shouldn't condemn his attempts at dialogue as 'guilt by association'.
Accusations of systemic anti-Semitism in the UK Labour Party obscure the party’s actual history of anti-Semitism, which is rooted in its support for empire and nationalism, not in anti-Zionism.
The Livingstone affair is the latest symptom of the European left's retreat into anti-Zionism. Proportionate criticism of Israel is necessary, but opposition to the Jewish State insults history.
Even in its most reactionary form, Zionism before the second world war was one of the voices of oppressed Jews facing the growth of violent anti Semitism as a mass movement everywhere.
The key question, given that antisemitism along with other forms of racism has had a continuing presence in British political life, is why now? Much hangs on this.
As Britain debates antisemitism and the left, support for populist right-wing parties using hardline anti-Semitic messages is growing across the continent.
