When a Guardian opinion piece comes straight out and says 'what the Labour leader said at a London conference convened by the Palestinian Return Centre in 2013 is unquestionably antisemitic' then the gig is up.
Here's part of what Simon Hattenstone has written in The Guardian:
'... but what the Labour leader said at a London conference convened by the Palestinian Return Centre in 2013 is unquestionably antisemitic.
Yesterday the Daily Mail showed footage of Corbyn addressing the conference, on the topic of British Zionists. He mentions an impassioned speech made at a meeting in parliament about the history of Palestine that was "dutifully recorded by the thankfully silent Zionists who were in the audience" (audience members he presumably knew nothing about). So far so bad. But it gets worse. He goes on to say that these unnamed Zionists in the audience "clearly have two problems. One is they don't want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don't understand English irony either … So I think they needed two lessons, which we can perhaps help them with."
It is unclear what the irony in question is. But it is irrelevant. To generalise about any race or religion is discriminatory. And if there were ever a clear example of somebody conflating Zionist with Jews, this appears to be it. Let's play the traditional "swap the minority" game. Instead of "Zionists" let's make it, say, Muslims or African-Caribbeans or Asians or Irish needing lessons in history or irony. Not nice, eh?
And what exactly does he mean by Zionists who have spent all or most of their lives in this country? Today the party insisted that Corbyn had been quoted out of context and that he had been referring to "Jewish and non-Jewish activists". Maybe. But it sounds pretty much like he was talking about British Jews to me. And In her 2016 report on antisemitism in the Labour party, Shami Chakrabarti wrote: "Crucially, I have heard testimony and heard for myself first hand, the way in which the word 'Zionist' has been used personally, abusively, or as a euphemism for 'Jew', even in relation to some people with no stated position or even a critical position on the historic formation or development of modern Israel. This has clearly happened so often over a number of years as to raise some alarm bells in Jewish communities." She concluded: "My advice to critics of the Israeli state and/or government is to use the term 'Zionist' advisedly, carefully and never euphemistically or as part of personal abuse."
Meanwhile, Labour's new code of conduct states that the use of the word Zionism "euphemistically or as part of any personal abuse" may "provide evidence of antisemitic intent". On both fronts, if Corbyn said the same thing today he would be in breach of his own party's guidance.
Let's look closely at the words used by Corbyn: these British Zionists don't study history, and they don't understand irony (ironic coming from one of the greatest literalists British politics has produced). In other words, they are uneducated, they have failed to integrate or assimilate, they are outsiders, they don't belong, they need to be taught a lesson. Sorry, Jeremy, this is the language of supremacism.'
More here in The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/24/jeremy-corbyn-antisemitism-labour-zionists-2013-speech but obviously not in the antisemitic, by at least one of the IHRA examples of antisemitism, BBC.
The BBC clearly threw in their lot with the Labour Party some years ago, however to carry on supporting the antisemite at the head of the Labour Party is a step too far. It's not their choice to make as it does go against their duty to be impartial.
Why should any British Jew continue to pay the BBC Licence Fee any longer?
Why should British Jews pay to support an antisemitic organisation?
How do we all cancel our BBC Licence Fee and make it clear why we are doing so?
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