'It is completely unacceptable for McCluskey to blame the leadership of the Jewish community for the failure to resolve the crisis of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
The Jewish community have been caused immense distress and offence, Labour MPs like Chuka Umunna are right to demand it is sorted out and they must not be silenced on this.
Of course the party must adopt the full IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and all its examples, but the refusal to do so is just the latest example of the problem, not the actual cause of the crisis.
Jewish MPs and members have been subjected to the most appalling abuse. Senior figures have claimed Hitler was a Zionist or said the Jews financed the slave trade. Labour candidates have denied or questioned the Holocaust.
People have denied Israel's right to exist, claiming the very idea of a Jewish State - not just the policies of its government or the actions of its military, but the simple idea of a homeland for the Jewish people - is a racist endeavour. Others have drawn outrageous comparisons between Israel and the crimes of the Nazis, without caring at all how horrendous it is to tell Jewish people they are behaving like the evil regime that murdered so many of them.
Jeremy Corbyn himself defended that grotesque racist caricature in East London.
After that the party told the Jewish community it knows more than they do about anti-Semitism by refusing to adopt the standard definition.
And now we've seen how Jeremy, the self-proclaimed "militant opponent of anti-Semitism", has spent so much time associating with or defending all sorts of extremists and in some cases anti-Semites and terrorists.
And every time he has spoken since he has made matters worse by refusing to acknowledge the scale of the crisis, address his role in its development or deal with it properly.'
That's Labour MP Ian Austin in the Huffington Post
The Normal procedure these days - Blame the Victim.
ReplyDelete