Labour's Jewish Problem

[Lockhouse]

The strange thing is that the majority Jews living in the UK vote Labour for some unclear reason

Not so true these days but certainly in the past.

[SueEllen]

The strange thing is that the majority Jews living in the UK vote Labour for some unclear reason

It does depend on the local candidate standing.

Some current Labour MPs and councillors are Jewish. One of them, Luciana Berger, is known for getting anti-Semitic as well as sexist hate and death threats due to her Jewish background.

In addition some candidates of other parties show they anti-Semitic and/or racist by the way they campaign in their area.

The stupid thing is people like Ken Livingston are so fecking thick they don't realise there are a number of Jews who don't believe Israel should exist however they are too busy alienating them by coming out with anti-Semitic tulip.

[BrilloPad]

Some current Labour MPs and councillors are Jewish. One of them, Luciana Berger, is known for getting anti-Semitic as well as sexist hate and death threats due to her Jewish background.

From Korbyn?

[northernladyuk]

The problem is that lefties in general are viscerally anti-Israel (both the govt and the very concept of the nation state) and don't seem to be able to draw the distinction between "Israel" and "Jews." The idiot Livingstone being a prime example.

You have forgotten the other side of this which is how the pro-Israel lobby conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. It is similar to the perjorative term 'self-hating Jew'.

The legitimacy of the term (in modern usage) remains controversial. According to the transdenominational Jewish platform My Jewish Learning: "Some scholars have claimed that by labeling another Jew self-hating, the accuser is claiming his or her own Judaism as normative–and implying that the Judaism of the accused is flawed or incorrect, based on a metric of the accuser’s own stances, religious beliefs, or political opinions. By arguing with the label, then, the accused is rejecting what has been defined as normative Judaism. The term “self-hating” thus places the person or object labeled outside the boundaries of the discourse–and outside the boundaries of the community."[29] Haaretz writes that the term is almost exclusively used today by the Jewish right against the Jewish left, and that within left-wing and liberal circles, is "usually considered a joke".[30] Richard Forer, writing for The Huffington Post, rejects the legitimacy of the term as it is commonly used, calling them so divisive that they make tolerance and cooperation impossible, eradicating the possibility for genuine understanding. Forer writes: "The notion that any Jew who is dedicated to justice for all people harbors self-hatred defies common sense. Given the self-esteem it takes to stand for justice amidst fierce denunciation, a more accurate assessment is that these are self-loving Jews."[31]

Jon Stewart, former host of The Daily Show, was repeatedly called a "self-hating Jew" by people whom he described as "fascistic".[32] Considering the term to be like equating someone with the Jews who turned their backs on each other during the Holocaust, he said, "I have people that I lost in the Holocaust and I just … go **** yourself. How dare you?" Stewart commented that the way his critics used the term—to define who is a Jew and who is not—was formerly always done by people who weren’t Jewish. He saw this as "more than nationalism". Stewart also criticized right-wing Jews for implying that they are the only ones who can decide what it means to be Jewish: "And you can’t observe (Judaism) in the way you want to observe. And I never thought that that would be coming from brethren. ... How dare they? That they only know the word of God and are the ones who are able to disseminate it. It's not right."[33] To The Hollywood Reporter, he said, "Look, there's a lot of reasons why I hate myself — being Jewish isn't one of them."[34]

In 2014, Noam Chomsky said that Zionists divided critics of Israeli policy into two groups: anti-Semitic non-Jews and neurotic self-hating Jews, stating:

Actually, the locus classicus, the best formulation of this, was by an ambassador to the United Nations, Abba Eban, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations.... He advised the American Jewish community that they had two tasks to perform. One task was to show that criticism of the policy, what he called anti-Zionism—that means actually criticisms of the policy of the state of Israel—were anti-Semitism. That's the first task. Second task, if the criticism was made by Jews, their task was to show that it's neurotic self-hatred, needs psychiatric treatment. Then he gave two examples of the latter category. One was I. F. Stone. The other was me. So, we have to be treated for our psychiatric disorders, and non-Jews have to be condemned for anti-Semitism, if they're critical of the state of Israel. That's understandable why Israeli propaganda would take this position. I don’t particularly blame Abba Eban for doing what ambassadors are sometimes supposed to do. But we ought to understand that there is no sensible charge. No sensible charge. There's nothing to respond to. It's not a form of anti-Semitism. It's simply criticism of the criminal actions of a state, period.[35]

Bernie Sanders, one of the Democratic candidates running for US Presidential elections in 2016, has repeatedly been criticized of being a "self-hating Jew".[36][37] His brother, Larry Sanders, told the Times of Israel that this was because his brother disagreed with Benjamin Netanyahu's foreign policy. "Bernard is not a self-hating Jew. There was never a moment in our life when we had any reason to be self-hating. The fact that he does not agree with Netanyahu on politics does not make him a self-hating Jew."[38] In March 2016, after a reporter asked him if he was "intentionally keeping his Judaism in the background", Sanders stated that he is "very proud to be Jewish, and being Jewish is so much of what I am. Look, my father's family was wiped out by Hitler in the Holocaust. I know about what crazy and radical, and extremist politics mean."[39] Max Berger wrote in Haaretz, "While some in the Jewish American establishment strive to marginalize Bernie and his movement by suggesting we’re self-hating Jews who don’t care about Israel, it just goes to show how badly out of touch they are with the future of our community, and the values of our tradition."[40] A related dispute revolved around his Jewish advisor, Simone Zimmerman, who was similarly accused of being a self-hating Jew. In These Times strongly criticized this accusation, describing it as "slandering".[41]

[SueEllen]

From Korbyn?

Korbyn was initially accused by some female MPs of being sexist, but then other male MPs showed he was just simply a tulip leader. Hence a load of them rushing to become a city mayor.

[Eirikur]

Labour has become a national socialist party with McDonnell and Corbyn

[northernladyuk]

Labour has become a national socialist party with McDonnell and Corbyn

Now you are just being silly.

[SueEllen]

Labour has become a national socialist party with McDonnell and Corbyn

Have a look at what that means in English not the translation from your mother tongue (or the many other languages you speak).

[northernladyuk]

Have a look at what that means in English not the translation from your mother tongue (or the many other languages you speak).

Erikur is daft or dishonest enough to claim that Labour is a Nazi party.

[saptastic]

The strange thing is that the majority Jews living in the UK vote Labour for some unclear reason

That is a surprise - Is there a reference to qualify this?