1 00:00:02,460 --> 00:00:14,280 Good afternoon and welcome, everybody. I'm personally delighted and excited to present to our colleague or friend a speaker today, uh, 2 00:00:14,730 --> 00:00:20,310 Professor Brian Clark, who is a senior research fellow in Philosophy at Independence Hall. 3 00:00:21,930 --> 00:00:28,050 Brian has published extensively on anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of racism, 4 00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:32,310 and his work has been cited in numerous reports on this subject. 5 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:39,150 Among these publications are often the Jewish case and being Jewish and doing justice. 6 00:00:39,900 --> 00:00:43,320 He has also edited and introduced a selection of Haddon's essays. 7 00:00:44,100 --> 00:00:51,150 More immediately related to our topic today. Brian has recently published in venues such as The Guardian, 8 00:00:51,690 --> 00:00:57,270 openDemocracy and the Jewish Quarterly, a series of articles on the definition of anti-Semitism. 9 00:00:57,660 --> 00:01:03,900 According to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and the Liberal Party's National Executive Committee, 10 00:01:05,940 --> 00:01:11,790 I make it short and just say that the title of his talk today is Defining Antisemitism, 11 00:01:12,210 --> 00:01:16,440 Demonising Zionism, The Current Controversy Over the Left and the Jews. 12 00:01:16,860 --> 00:01:21,899 Brian, thank you so much. Thank you very much. Yakov. I was hoping you could speak a little bit longer so I could finish talking the 13 00:01:21,900 --> 00:01:27,120 peppermint that will lubricate my vocal cords such that I can get through this paper, 14 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:31,049 which is a little on the long side, I'm afraid so. 15 00:01:31,050 --> 00:01:31,950 I'll go straight into it. 16 00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:41,430 This paper is based on the analysis in my essay, The Left and the Jews Labour's Summer of Discontent and the Current Issue of Jewish Quarterly. 17 00:01:42,270 --> 00:01:47,790 To those who have read the essay, I apologise for subjecting you to its analysis a second time. 18 00:01:48,660 --> 00:01:52,980 Some people might think I should apologise for subjecting anyone to its analysis even once. 19 00:01:54,000 --> 00:02:02,160 For my part. Well, I don't feel the need to say sorry. I do regret certain gaps in the argument as well as points that I fail to make clearly enough. 20 00:02:02,790 --> 00:02:08,970 So I welcome your invitation to give this seminar today and to try to rectify some of those failings. 21 00:02:11,130 --> 00:02:17,670 As I now see it, the paper has three principal topics rather than the two mentioned in the title I gave Yakov and Yakov just read out. 22 00:02:17,940 --> 00:02:25,770 So the new title is Defining Antisemitism, Demonising Zionism, Excoriating Corbyn. 23 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:35,730 These are the three headings under which I will present my analysis of the current controversy over the Left and the Jews, which remains the subtitle. 24 00:02:36,570 --> 00:02:40,300 I begin with a section that sets the scene well. 25 00:02:40,350 --> 00:02:44,069 Before we begin a word about the reception given to this essay. 26 00:02:44,070 --> 00:02:48,550 So far it has been mixed and I expected nothing less. 27 00:02:48,570 --> 00:02:55,649 After all, the subject is highly political. People feel very strongly about it and the perspective I offer is controversial at the extremes. 28 00:02:55,650 --> 00:03:01,590 There were two reactions that I can only describe as rants they tore into the essay, 29 00:03:01,590 --> 00:03:06,390 ripping it apart and dismissing its author me as some sort of scumbag. 30 00:03:07,830 --> 00:03:13,740 Now, the interesting point about this is that the two rants both came from Jews, but from diametrically opposite directions. 31 00:03:14,760 --> 00:03:21,390 One is an article in the Weekly Worker newspaper published by the Communist Party of Great Britain Provisional Central Committee. 32 00:03:21,930 --> 00:03:25,890 Not to be confused with the Communist Party of Britain or the New Communist Party of Britain, 33 00:03:26,130 --> 00:03:30,630 or the Communist Party of Great Britain, Marxist-Leninist or the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain. 34 00:03:30,780 --> 00:03:41,070 Marxist-Leninist. The author, a committed anti-Zionist, observes, I quote, It has been a tough three years, 35 00:03:41,460 --> 00:03:44,820 and when the going gets tough, academics are often the first to cave in. 36 00:03:44,820 --> 00:03:47,950 I'm sure everyone here recognises the accuracy of that. 37 00:03:48,660 --> 00:03:55,469 And Brian, with all his erudition and sophistication, has abandoned those of us who are not willing to throw in the towel. 38 00:03:55,470 --> 00:04:04,120 He has abandoned the most oppressed for the sake of Jewish chauvinism dressed up as a concern about anti-Semitism. 39 00:04:05,310 --> 00:04:08,250 Now, the diatribe from the other side, as it were, was not published. 40 00:04:08,250 --> 00:04:12,030 But the author, who himself writes for Jewish Quarterly, as well as the Jewish Chronicle, 41 00:04:12,390 --> 00:04:19,500 calls my approach and I quote partisan and incendiary and describes the ending as, quote, hysterical. 42 00:04:20,460 --> 00:04:30,480 The most revealing criticism is this Klug knows he is in a small minority, as if that were an indictment, he continues. 43 00:04:30,630 --> 00:04:32,460 But you can't wish away the Jewish community, 44 00:04:32,790 --> 00:04:40,260 which has shown remarkable consensus on Corbynism by just putting the Jewish community in inverted commas, 45 00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:46,290 as I do not because I wish it away, but because I question the meaning of the phrase the Jewish community. 46 00:04:48,030 --> 00:04:51,630 Now, what strikes me about these two broadsides and the reason why I'm mentioning them at the outset, 47 00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:59,730 is that each of them filters out half of the arguments of the essay. Each is exercised by the half that goes against their particular grain. 48 00:05:00,730 --> 00:05:03,430 Ignoring the other half or perhaps not even noticing it. 49 00:05:03,610 --> 00:05:11,710 And my plea to you today is to hear my argument in the round may well take issue with it and not accept it. 50 00:05:12,190 --> 00:05:17,440 But please, if you will try to hear the whole arguments and not just one half of it. 51 00:05:20,110 --> 00:05:26,860 In my view, the current controversy over the left and the Jews is genuinely complex and the issues it raises are tricky. 52 00:05:27,760 --> 00:05:32,410 But on the whole, the public debate, if you can call it a debate, is polarised. 53 00:05:33,040 --> 00:05:37,240 As a result, facts are misrepresented, statements are taken out of context. 54 00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:43,390 Language is inflated, claims are exaggerated, arguments are ad hominem and so on. 55 00:05:44,260 --> 00:05:49,420 Most of us bring an agenda into this room and our agendas diverge, and that's fine. 56 00:05:49,810 --> 00:05:58,210 But I open with a plea for a different quality of debate, as the Lord says, and I want you to come now and let us reason together. 57 00:06:00,220 --> 00:06:06,490 The people will follow the general lines of the Jewish call to the USA, which I shall amend or refine or elaborate as I go. 58 00:06:12,950 --> 00:06:18,290 Part one setting the scene. And I'm sorry if this is a bit tedious, but for the sake of the argument, 59 00:06:18,290 --> 00:06:25,820 I think it's necessary to get the factual context in place, and some people will be more familiar with that than others. 60 00:06:27,740 --> 00:06:33,500 For the Labour Party, this past summer was not exactly tranquil, nor was it for those of us who got sucked into the maelstrom. 61 00:06:34,160 --> 00:06:39,470 In July, an initiative announced by the party's governing body, the National Executive Committee and AEC, 62 00:06:39,950 --> 00:06:44,450 sparked a storm of public controversy and led to the party being charged with anti-Semitism. 63 00:06:45,050 --> 00:06:48,530 Given the scale and intensity of the rage directed at the only sea. 64 00:06:48,770 --> 00:06:55,580 You might have thought that it had proposed banning circumcision or chiquito or the sale of kosher meat or the wearing of tefillin. 65 00:06:56,180 --> 00:07:04,130 Not so. The only crime, so to speak, consisted in drafting a code of conduct to tackle antisemitism in the party. 66 00:07:05,540 --> 00:07:08,600 Now, there was, of course, more to this counterintuitive fact than meets the eye. 67 00:07:08,630 --> 00:07:14,180 It is a classic case of the tip of an iceberg or more appropriately, the vent of a volcano. 68 00:07:14,990 --> 00:07:23,180 Before delving into the volcano and examining the crime in more detail, consider the furore it released it unleashed. 69 00:07:24,740 --> 00:07:30,379 You did not have to be Jewish to point a finger at you and you see. Nonetheless, the charge was led by Jewish organisations, 70 00:07:30,380 --> 00:07:37,370 especially those who either see themselves as speaking for the Jewish community or are also perceived by the general British public. 71 00:07:38,210 --> 00:07:40,250 The significance of this is something to which I shall return. 72 00:07:40,250 --> 00:07:49,400 In the final section they included the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, and the Office of the Chief Rabbi excuse me. 73 00:07:50,660 --> 00:07:57,200 They were ably abetted by a number of Jewish and non-Jewish Labour MPs and public intellectuals, referring to the NSC code. 74 00:07:57,560 --> 00:08:05,480 The Jewish Chronicle denounced, and I quote, a cynical exercise in Jew hatred and described the party as, 75 00:08:05,480 --> 00:08:13,430 and I quote again, institutionally antisemitic. 68 rabbis jointly signed a letter to the Guardian declaring that, I quote, 76 00:08:13,770 --> 00:08:24,740 Antisemitism within sections of the Labour Party has become so severe and widespread that we must speak out with one Jewish voice, one Jewish voice. 77 00:08:25,430 --> 00:08:32,750 Now, the last time that happened was at Mount Sinai, shortly after the shortly after the exodus from Egypt, 78 00:08:33,050 --> 00:08:40,730 when the children of Israel answered Moses, quote, with one voice exposed to all three in the same rare spirit of accord, 79 00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:48,350 three losing three leading Jewish newspapers overcame their rivalry and published an identical front page warning darkly of, 80 00:08:48,350 --> 00:08:54,890 and I quote, the existential threat to Jewish life in this country that would be posed by a Jeremy Corbyn led government. 81 00:08:55,340 --> 00:08:59,300 End of quote. Their joint headline read United We Stand. 82 00:08:59,990 --> 00:09:06,590 So we have gone from the old joke to Jews three opinions to three Jewish editors, one opinion nothing. 83 00:09:07,310 --> 00:09:14,810 And that's no joke. When a group thinks with one mind and speaks with one voice, it runs the risk of surrendering its critical faculties. 84 00:09:15,620 --> 00:09:20,030 Moreover, when a premium is placed on unity, dissenters become pariahs. 85 00:09:20,450 --> 00:09:27,020 For both these reasons, the strident consensus that sprung into being in the summer was not only surprising but alarming. 86 00:09:28,520 --> 00:09:32,870 It was also false because there were Jewish groups and individuals such as myself 87 00:09:33,140 --> 00:09:37,129 who welcomed this initiative and not out of complacency about anti-Semitism, 88 00:09:37,130 --> 00:09:43,970 far from it, because there might be no such thing as the Jewish community, a cohesive collective with a unified voice. 89 00:09:44,450 --> 00:09:49,129 But there is a community of concern felt by many of us as Jews. 90 00:09:49,130 --> 00:09:51,800 Whatever our politics about antisemitism. 91 00:09:51,800 --> 00:10:01,460 On the left, the spectre of anti-Semitism has haunted Labour ever since Corbyn's election as leader of the party in September 2015. 92 00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:07,190 Among those accused were high profile Corbyn supporters, notably Ken Livingstone, former mayor of London, 93 00:10:07,490 --> 00:10:16,129 who was suspended from the party for remarks in which he crudely linked Hitler with Zionism in 2016 as allegations that, by the way, 94 00:10:16,130 --> 00:10:21,860 will become relevant later on in 2016 as allegations continue to be made against left wing activists, 95 00:10:22,220 --> 00:10:29,750 often on the basis of things they said in the pre Corbyn era, the NCC initiated two inquiries into anti-Semitism in the party. 96 00:10:30,170 --> 00:10:35,809 One was conducted by Baroness Janet's Royal, who has since been elected principal of Somerville and Royal, 97 00:10:35,810 --> 00:10:39,230 examines allegations of antisemitism in Oxford University Labour Club. 98 00:10:39,290 --> 00:10:46,760 Oh, you will see. In her executive summary, she wrote, I quote, I do not believe that there is institutional antisemitism within those you will see. 99 00:10:47,030 --> 00:10:55,370 She added difficulties. However face you will see which must be addressed to ensure a safe space for all Labour students to debate and campaign. 100 00:10:56,780 --> 00:10:59,900 The second inquiry was into antisemitism in the Labour Party. More generally. 101 00:11:00,260 --> 00:11:03,170 It was led by Shami CHAKRABARTI, the long time director of Liberty. 102 00:11:03,710 --> 00:11:10,070 She found that the party, and I quote, is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism. 103 00:11:10,970 --> 00:11:15,110 She did. However, the Texan quotes occasionally toxic atmosphere, 104 00:11:15,110 --> 00:11:25,550 which was quote again was is which is in danger of shutting down free speech within the party. 105 00:11:27,860 --> 00:11:33,530 She made a number of recommendations for dispelling this toxic atmosphere and for reforming the party's disciplinary process. 106 00:11:34,550 --> 00:11:40,400 On the one hand, the Board of Deputies, disappointed by her comforting conclusion, dismissed her report as a whitewash. 107 00:11:41,270 --> 00:11:46,580 And on the other hand, the NDC, in its wisdom, took little or no action to implement the recommendations. 108 00:11:46,820 --> 00:11:53,420 This neglect by the NDC, exacerbated by the failure to deal expeditiously with specific complaints, 109 00:11:53,870 --> 00:11:56,840 festered for two years until the crisis of this summer. 110 00:11:57,200 --> 00:12:04,040 At the same time, there was the drip, drip of poisonous posts on social media and on some left wing internet forums, 111 00:12:04,490 --> 00:12:07,370 all of which generated a kind of miasma. 112 00:12:10,330 --> 00:12:17,560 The tendency on the part of some people on the left to deny that there was a problem, did not help to solve the problem they denied, 113 00:12:18,430 --> 00:12:25,030 nor did it help when time and again Corbyn condemned antisemitism because he is quote, against all forms of racism. 114 00:12:25,850 --> 00:12:28,330 I don't doubt for a moment that this sentiment is sincere. 115 00:12:28,570 --> 00:12:33,820 It comes from a man with an honourable record opposing racism and for that matter, other kinds of social injustice. 116 00:12:33,820 --> 00:12:40,810 All his life it comes from the heart. But as I shall elaborate later, it spectacularly misses the point. 117 00:12:42,850 --> 00:12:47,410 Corbyn, moreover, was called to task for actions and inaction of his own, mainly from the past. 118 00:12:47,920 --> 00:12:50,800 For example, as a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, 119 00:12:51,100 --> 00:12:59,110 he hosted an event at the House of Commons in March 2009 that included speakers from Hamas and Hezbollah, whom he referred to as friends. 120 00:12:59,800 --> 00:13:01,930 He later said that he regretted this choice of words. 121 00:13:02,710 --> 00:13:09,250 In March 2019, he came under fire for a Facebook post from 2012, in which, on grounds of free speech, 122 00:13:09,490 --> 00:13:14,530 he backed a protest against an action taken by Tower Hamlets Borough Council. 123 00:13:14,770 --> 00:13:20,380 The council had ordered the removal of a mural by the graffiti artist and build one from a wall in Brooklyn. 124 00:13:21,430 --> 00:13:26,020 The old Jewish who sent the mural featured crude caricatures of rich businessmen 125 00:13:26,020 --> 00:13:29,890 and bankers with big hawk noses playing monopoly on the backs of the poor. 126 00:13:30,610 --> 00:13:35,709 When earlier this year, this was brought to Corbyn's attention, he acknowledged that the imagery was, I quote, 127 00:13:35,710 --> 00:13:41,740 deeply disturbing and anti-Semitic, and he expressed regret for not having looked closely enough at the time. 128 00:13:45,660 --> 00:13:51,000 In short, the unrest over antisemitism in Labour under Corbyn had been simmering for a 129 00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:56,880 while before it came to a head in July over the crime committed by the NDC. 130 00:13:57,090 --> 00:13:59,760 The code of conduct on antisemitism that it produced. 131 00:14:00,750 --> 00:14:06,390 So let's examine this crime and see if it justifies the imprecations pronounced upon it by Jewish leadership. 132 00:14:07,080 --> 00:14:09,540 When we discover, as we shall, that it does not, 133 00:14:10,290 --> 00:14:16,080 and that the hostility to the NDC code of conduct was out of all proportion to any deficiencies it might have contained. 134 00:14:16,860 --> 00:14:21,810 The ground will be laid for the question. What then did the reaction really signify? 135 00:14:26,790 --> 00:14:34,650 Part two defining anti-Semitism. Let me preface this section by saying that I think sometimes people expect too much from a definition. 136 00:14:35,550 --> 00:14:39,750 People imagine that definitions are somehow going to settle the problems that 137 00:14:39,750 --> 00:14:44,489 are problems that are conceptual and sometimes controversies that somehow, 138 00:14:44,490 --> 00:14:53,600 by pinning a word down, you're going to prevent the arguments and the confusion that people have concerning that world. 139 00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:58,320 I would say that with any complex concept and any form of racism is complex. 140 00:14:58,770 --> 00:15:00,630 No definition is definitive. 141 00:15:00,990 --> 00:15:09,480 And I think that's a kind of good rule of thumb to start from when opening the topic of definitions of anti-Semitism or any other form of racism. 142 00:15:11,580 --> 00:15:18,990 At the heart of the controversy over Labour's initiative was a document known as the i h r a working definition of anti-Semitism. 143 00:15:19,740 --> 00:15:23,580 The letters on HRA stand for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, 144 00:15:24,420 --> 00:15:30,090 an intergovernmental body formed in 1998 to which 31 countries the UK included belong. 145 00:15:31,380 --> 00:15:40,050 The HRA document issued in May 2006, consists essentially of a dictionary style definition, which I shall refer to as the definition proper. 146 00:15:40,470 --> 00:15:49,560 Although as we shall see, it was not properly a definition plus a set of 11 examples which the document explains are not intended to be exhaustive. 147 00:15:50,580 --> 00:15:54,180 When commentators refer to the Ayatollahs definition in full, 148 00:15:54,600 --> 00:15:59,580 they mean the combination of these two elements the definition proper and the 11 examples with no alteration. 149 00:16:00,780 --> 00:16:07,940 Abstracting from different versions of the hostile reactions to the any see coat of Arms of anti-Semitism, Code of Conduct on anti-Semitism. 150 00:16:08,520 --> 00:16:10,800 The main indictment can be put this way. 151 00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:21,120 The NSC or the Labour Party is guilty of writing its own definition of anti-Semitism rather than adopting the HRA definition in full. 152 00:16:22,560 --> 00:16:27,150 This was reinforced by pointing out that the HRA definition, though not necessarily in full, 153 00:16:28,110 --> 00:16:33,210 has been adopted by several national governments, public authorities and agencies. 154 00:16:34,170 --> 00:16:39,030 This claim is not false, so it must be said that at times it is a tad exaggerated. 155 00:16:39,390 --> 00:16:46,710 For example, Stephen Kinnock stated categorically that the HRA definition and I quote and is the only globally accepted one. 156 00:16:47,550 --> 00:16:51,480 But Anthony Lohmann points out that only six out of 31 governments whose 157 00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:55,740 countries are members of HRA have formally endorsed or adopted the definition. 158 00:16:56,580 --> 00:17:00,810 He adds, I quote him. It's not clear whether they have adopted the examples or not. 159 00:17:00,960 --> 00:17:11,220 So hardly global. Anyway, the indictment thus turned on a comparison between the HRA text and the NDC code as announced in mid-July. 160 00:17:11,220 --> 00:17:14,459 And I realise this part of the talk is rather tedious, 161 00:17:14,460 --> 00:17:20,460 but it's necessary to go through this because the rest of the argument is going to depend on showing that there is a discrepancy, 162 00:17:20,460 --> 00:17:31,800 a huge discrepancy between the hostility towards the NDC code based on the comparison with the Ontario document and and an objective comparison, 163 00:17:31,800 --> 00:17:36,540 if you will. The indictment thus turns the indictment against the NDC thus turned on a 164 00:17:36,540 --> 00:17:40,530 comparison between the original text and the NDC code as announced in mid-July. 165 00:17:41,040 --> 00:17:47,100 As people here might know, on fifth September, the NDC decided to incorporate the full HRA definition, 166 00:17:47,310 --> 00:17:53,190 but it is the July version that precipitated the reaction I am discussing, which is why I am dwelling on it. 167 00:17:55,800 --> 00:18:00,060 The bare bones of the comparison can be set out by way of three questions and answers, 168 00:18:00,060 --> 00:18:05,670 rather than dragging us all through the detail which I set out in the Open Democracy article. 169 00:18:05,970 --> 00:18:10,110 Let's just bring it down now to three questions and answers first. 170 00:18:10,800 --> 00:18:16,830 Did the NSC code either ignore or alter the definition proper in the original text? 171 00:18:16,890 --> 00:18:19,950 Answer no. Second. 172 00:18:20,460 --> 00:18:24,300 Sorry. Answer No. The definition was reproduced verbatim. 173 00:18:25,170 --> 00:18:28,590 Second, did the NSC code include unaltered? 174 00:18:28,590 --> 00:18:34,770 The 11 examples. Answer It contained a list that comprised seven of the 11 word for word, 175 00:18:35,190 --> 00:18:41,640 except for substituting Nazi for National Socialist in one sentence and expanding one example non controversially. 176 00:18:41,880 --> 00:18:46,500 The remaining four examples all pertained to political comment on Israel and 177 00:18:46,500 --> 00:18:50,610 were discussed in separate guidelines except for one clause of one example. 178 00:18:51,090 --> 00:18:58,350 Arguably, they were incorporated into the code in a modified form. The exception quotes claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a 179 00:18:58,350 --> 00:19:04,470 racist endeavour was omitted altogether from the NSC code and its guidelines. 180 00:19:04,890 --> 00:19:09,450 It has since become a focal point of controversy as people I'm sure aware. 181 00:19:09,930 --> 00:19:17,040 Third, in the light of these two answers, was the NSC guilty as charged, writing its own definition of anti-Semitism? 182 00:19:17,670 --> 00:19:23,100 My answer to that is we live in an age of overstatement, which is an understatement. 183 00:19:25,890 --> 00:19:29,700 Without going deeper into the Rashi, the commentary on these two documents, 184 00:19:30,210 --> 00:19:34,470 we need to take a closer look in order to evaluate the early reaction to the NSC code. 185 00:19:35,490 --> 00:19:41,220 To begin with, the Okorie working definition is not a model of either clarity or consistency. 186 00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:47,440 Consider the definition proper. It comprises two sentences and I'll read them out anti-Semitism. 187 00:19:47,580 --> 00:19:49,890 And I'm going to put emphasis on certain words or phrases. 188 00:19:50,550 --> 00:19:57,630 anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews. 189 00:19:58,590 --> 00:20:04,290 Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed towards Jewish or non-Jewish 190 00:20:04,530 --> 00:20:11,700 individuals and or their property towards Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. 191 00:20:12,600 --> 00:20:17,309 I wonder if it's Jewish or non-Jewish individuals why it wouldn't be Jewish or non-Jewish community institutions. 192 00:20:17,310 --> 00:20:21,150 But I can't really get myself into the head of the people who wrote this definition. 193 00:20:21,690 --> 00:20:26,700 Now, this is, I would say, vague and rambling rather than clear and precise by definition. 194 00:20:26,700 --> 00:20:28,920 But this is not a definition. It just looks like one. 195 00:20:29,700 --> 00:20:35,700 Writing in the London Review of Books, Stephen Hadley, who is here today somewhere in the room, put the point this way. 196 00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:41,010 He said, The Ayatollah's definition, I quote him, fails the first test of any definition. 197 00:20:41,010 --> 00:20:49,980 It is indefinite. Exactly. Given that the definition gives little or no guidance, the weight of the document has to fall on the 11 examples. 198 00:20:51,690 --> 00:20:57,989 But what are the examples of the Ayatollah's text includes an umbrella clause that explains their status. 199 00:20:57,990 --> 00:21:07,700 They are it states examples of what are known quoting from the document could taking into account the overall context be antisemitic? 200 00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:13,020 This crucial qualification is integral to the text, but equally crucially, 201 00:21:13,020 --> 00:21:17,899 it is overlooked by both proponents and opponents of the Irish IHRA definition alike. 202 00:21:17,900 --> 00:21:25,470 Like almost invariably, the examples are treated as if they were instances of antisemitism full stop, which they are not. 203 00:21:25,530 --> 00:21:31,080 That's quite explicit in the document, except that some of them are, while others are not. 204 00:21:31,650 --> 00:21:37,200 This is where it gets really confusing. This to any thinking person gives pause to put it another way. 205 00:21:37,350 --> 00:21:45,660 The set of 11 examples is a ragbag that mixes discourse that is actually antisemitic, such as the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy. 206 00:21:46,110 --> 00:21:54,390 It doesn't matter what the context is. It seems to me that just simply is an example of antisemitism with discourse that is only potentially so, 207 00:21:54,690 --> 00:21:57,780 such as applying double standards when criticising Israel. 208 00:21:58,500 --> 00:22:00,479 These two cases are so different from each other, 209 00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:07,440 but they're lumped together in the set of examples of what could happen depending on the overall context, be antisemitic. 210 00:22:07,650 --> 00:22:14,490 So it's really confusing. Thus, the umbrella clause meant to cover all the examples properly applies only to some and not others. 211 00:22:14,760 --> 00:22:18,840 Far from providing clarity, the examples merely add to the confusion. 212 00:22:19,620 --> 00:22:25,859 Confusion begets confusion. One of the main functions of a clear and consistent definition of antisemitism is to help tackle a 213 00:22:25,860 --> 00:22:31,829 conundrum how to rule out antisemitic discourse while protecting legitimate political debate over Zionism, 214 00:22:31,830 --> 00:22:40,290 Israel and Palestine. It is no accident that the four Iht HRA examples singled out in the NBC code were all about Israel. 215 00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:46,680 People of goodwill, whatever their views about the conflict, are genuinely confused on this question and. 216 00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:59,149 And. And seek guidance. I encountered this confusion and the vexation it produces when I took part 217 00:22:59,150 --> 00:23:02,750 recently in a meeting in Ramsgate of the South and its consistent constituency, 218 00:23:02,750 --> 00:23:07,399 Labour Party, which was devoted entirely to the discussion of antisemitism on the left. 219 00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:12,710 And at the end of the discussion, after 2 hours in which I tried to shed light on the subject. 220 00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:19,190 One woman with a note of desperation in her voice said she still did not know how to talk about Israel when canvassing. 221 00:23:20,270 --> 00:23:21,680 To which I replied, Mel Culpa. 222 00:23:22,100 --> 00:23:29,270 I mean, you know, I tried, but it's difficult to get through everything that needs to be said in order to in order to shed light on this question. 223 00:23:29,660 --> 00:23:35,630 The conundrum, in other words, is not a mere riddle. It's a practical problem about the limits of legitimate discourse and debate. 224 00:23:36,110 --> 00:23:40,220 A definition that muddies the waters, muddles the debate. 225 00:23:43,260 --> 00:23:46,680 In short, the HRA definition is not fit for purpose. 226 00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:51,780 Even if every government in the civilised world, along with every public authority, embraced it, 227 00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:56,760 and even if a procession of learned scholars endorsed it while gravely reciting Latin verse, 228 00:23:57,570 --> 00:24:01,000 this would not make the definition less vague or the examples less confusing. 229 00:24:01,020 --> 00:24:07,500 If the Emperor has no clothes, he has no clothes, even if his non-existent finery is praised by one and all. 230 00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:13,440 The fact that this confused and confusing document has gained so much currency does not augur well. 231 00:24:13,860 --> 00:24:17,640 It will not assist people of goodwill who are wrestling with the conundrum I have mentioned. 232 00:24:18,060 --> 00:24:23,420 It will only serve more confusion and contention. That is a prediction, but I don't particularly wish to make. 233 00:24:23,430 --> 00:24:28,020 But I'm afraid I think it's true. Not that the only C code was perfect. 234 00:24:28,020 --> 00:24:34,020 I, for one, had reservations about certain provisions. It did, however, improve on the original redefinition in several ways. 235 00:24:34,380 --> 00:24:40,620 For example, it stipulated that it is racist to require, and I quote from the NSC Code, 236 00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:47,190 more vociferous condemnation of Israel's actions from Jewish people or organisations than from others. 237 00:24:47,610 --> 00:24:50,790 And I know this speaks to the lived experience of some Jewish people on the left. 238 00:24:51,870 --> 00:25:00,360 It also highlighted the anti-Semitism that consists in making a gratuitous reference to being Jewish as in Jewish banker comparable to black MAGA. 239 00:25:01,740 --> 00:25:08,790 Neither of these points is present in the HRC text. Yet both points, along with other indisputably positive features of the only C code, 240 00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:16,200 were passed over in silence by the critics while summing up the NSC code was a constructive, 241 00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:20,970 if flawed, initiative based on a document that is itself deeply flawed. 242 00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:28,440 The HRC document definition, the latter at least, has the good grace to call itself a working definition. 243 00:25:28,650 --> 00:25:31,860 The working definition by definition is not written in stone. 244 00:25:32,130 --> 00:25:35,310 Yet this one seems to have acquired the status of a sacred text. 245 00:25:36,030 --> 00:25:43,769 The 68 rabbis who spoke with one Jewish voice rallied around it, urging Labour to adopt the Turks. 246 00:25:43,770 --> 00:25:48,780 And I quote from their letter full and unamended, as if it were the eternal word of God. 247 00:25:49,830 --> 00:25:54,420 But in the Judaism in which I was nurtured and educated, there is only one text whose status is sacred. 248 00:25:55,140 --> 00:25:59,400 And it was not written by a committee of the HRA, nor for that matter, 249 00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:05,250 by a working group that was set up by the EU, AMC, the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia. 250 00:26:05,730 --> 00:26:13,020 WHO so-called working definition going back now about 15 years was the prototype for the HRA working definition, 251 00:26:14,700 --> 00:26:19,440 all of which is so striking that it begs the question, what was this really about? 252 00:26:19,620 --> 00:26:26,730 What? Why was there a glaring absence of measured criticism and reasoned debate over the C code? 253 00:26:27,420 --> 00:26:35,130 Why the blanket rejection of the code as if it were anathema and the implacable insistence upon the Ayatollah's definition to court? 254 00:26:36,210 --> 00:26:40,740 Did it signify an alliance of forces with an anti Corbyn and anti left agenda? 255 00:26:41,730 --> 00:26:47,130 Or did it express a profound disquiet that for good reason, many Jewish people feel? 256 00:26:47,220 --> 00:26:52,340 Which was it? And I'm afraid I have to go home. 257 00:26:52,340 --> 00:26:55,580 I'm sorry that I don't want to leave that question hanging, because that's it. 258 00:26:56,810 --> 00:27:02,390 All right. Okay. Section three, maybe demonising scientism. 259 00:27:03,980 --> 00:27:08,990 It was both, in my view. It was a fusion of both. 260 00:27:08,990 --> 00:27:12,920 And that's the problem. This fusion is about as safe as a stick of dynamite. 261 00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:17,030 And I so comment on the danger in the final section excoriating Corbyn. 262 00:27:17,330 --> 00:27:22,790 My focus now is on the second factor the profound disquiet that many Jewish people feel 263 00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:28,400 for good reason because it keeps getting lost in left wing reactions to Jewish reactions. 264 00:27:30,410 --> 00:27:35,750 That's something that I've noticed for years. The grounds for disquiet go deep and they go back a long way. 265 00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:42,330 A key moment occurred in November 1975, when the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 3379. 266 00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:46,790 Asserting that, quote, Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination. 267 00:27:47,630 --> 00:27:56,780 The devil is in that is Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination, as in Zionism equals racism and not just racism. 268 00:27:57,050 --> 00:28:01,820 The preamble takes note of a declaration proclaimed earlier that year calling for, and I quote, 269 00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:09,020 the elimination of colonialism and neo colonialism, foreign occupation, Zionism, apartheid and racial discrimination in all its forms. 270 00:28:09,650 --> 00:28:13,010 In this long list of evils, Zionism is stigmatised by the company. 271 00:28:13,010 --> 00:28:20,420 It keeps Zionism. Which in another paragraph is referred to as, and I quote, this racist and imperialist ideology. 272 00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:25,750 In effect, the resolution determined that Zionism is a form of evil Zionism per se. 273 00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:30,920 As such, no ifs and buts or caveats. Zionism in itself and in all its forms. 274 00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:36,980 Even though this finding affirmed by the closest thing the world has to a global political body, 275 00:28:37,010 --> 00:28:42,740 the UN totally erased the origins of Zionism in the Jewish historical experience of exclusion. 276 00:28:42,950 --> 00:28:48,200 Expulsion. And to borrow a phrase from the text of the UN resolution racial discrimination. 277 00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:54,319 Furthermore, it completely flattened a national movement that, like other national movements born from oppression, 278 00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:59,660 had its left wing and right wing and even statist and non-status varieties. 279 00:28:59,690 --> 00:29:04,790 The uncle mentioned the book of essays by Ehud Olmert that I edited and published a couple of years ago. 280 00:29:04,790 --> 00:29:09,860 And he has included in that selection an essay that he wrote in 1920 called After Balfour, 281 00:29:10,340 --> 00:29:15,470 where he puts forward roughly a kind of binational proposal for. 282 00:29:16,430 --> 00:29:21,920 Palestine. What? His credentials as a scientist are pretty strong. 283 00:29:22,130 --> 00:29:27,650 And if you go to almost any town in Israel, you will find a record on the street named after him. 284 00:29:27,950 --> 00:29:33,560 So I use him as an example when I say that there were non-status varieties of this movement, 285 00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:37,310 not that the resolution originated in an anti-Jewish animus. 286 00:29:37,340 --> 00:29:42,530 If you ask me, there were essentially geopolitical reasons in the context of the Cold War that 287 00:29:42,530 --> 00:29:47,030 lay behind the U.N. General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism. 288 00:29:47,750 --> 00:29:58,700 Nonetheless, it rode roughshod over the memory of the Shoah, which had occurred barely 30 years earlier, and which drove many Jews, 289 00:29:58,790 --> 00:30:04,250 Jews who had no interest in Zionism in any of its forms, to turn to the state of Israel as a source of hope and pride. 290 00:30:04,490 --> 00:30:10,790 Whether or not the pride and the hope turned out to be misplaced and although revoked in 1991, 291 00:30:10,790 --> 00:30:17,480 again for geopolitical reasons, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the UN resolution left an indelible mark. 292 00:30:17,510 --> 00:30:25,190 This is the point of the prevailing discourse of the radical left, or that portion of it, which is vocal in supporting the Palestinian national cause. 293 00:30:25,550 --> 00:30:28,580 This is the part of the left to which Corbyn has belonged all his adult life. 294 00:30:30,230 --> 00:30:32,820 He is, however, on record as supporting the two state solution. 295 00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:40,670 He repeated that in an article in The Guardian, by the way, on the 3rd of August, and he is not in favour of a blanket BDS policy. 296 00:30:41,090 --> 00:30:44,150 Nobody would ever guess this from the crude polemics against him. 297 00:30:45,530 --> 00:30:54,229 Here in this demonising discourse about Zionism in that perfunctory condemnatory is Zionism is a form of racism lies one 298 00:30:54,230 --> 00:31:01,190 source of the profound disquiet that had been bubbling up since Corbyn's election in 2015 and which erupted this summer. 299 00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:06,230 I call this discourse demonising because it is structured by a simple binary. 300 00:31:06,620 --> 00:31:13,070 Villains versus victims or oppressors versus oppressed. Angels versus devils wasn't ism on the side of the devils. 301 00:31:13,310 --> 00:31:17,570 This is too loaded for the generality of Jews regardless of their position on Israel. 302 00:31:18,110 --> 00:31:22,220 Since demonisation quite literally, was at the core of classic antisemitism. 303 00:31:22,670 --> 00:31:29,030 Moreover, when 60% of British Jews identify as Zionist, while 90% say that Israel. 304 00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:37,370 I quote this is from research done by City University two or three years ago that Israel forms some part of their identity as Jews. 305 00:31:37,790 --> 00:31:43,040 Then inevitably, irrespective of intent, demonising Zionism ends up demonising Jews. 306 00:31:44,780 --> 00:31:49,640 But someone might say, Is it not the case that Zionism is part of the history of European imperialism? 307 00:31:50,630 --> 00:31:54,470 It is. And was it not from the outset, a settler colonial project? 308 00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:58,280 It depends what you mean by that phrase. But yes, in a sense it was. 309 00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:06,770 Moreover, the stamp of Europe was impressed deeply on the way political Zionism redefined Jewish identity and conceived of the Jewish state, 310 00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:16,790 something which I think your own work brings out very clearly, as in Herzl Zionist writings in the Jordan start. 311 00:32:17,420 --> 00:32:20,329 Herzl said the Jewish state that he envisaged would, and I quote, 312 00:32:20,330 --> 00:32:26,510 form a portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilisation as opposed to barbarism. 313 00:32:26,810 --> 00:32:31,190 And to quote that notice on this Congress, Max, an order echoing Herzl said, 314 00:32:31,190 --> 00:32:34,880 and I quote him We will endeavour to do in the Near East what the English did in India. 315 00:32:35,990 --> 00:32:41,930 It is our intention to come to Palestine as the representatives of culture and to take the moral borders of Europe, 316 00:32:41,930 --> 00:32:45,800 the moral borders of Europe to the Euphrates River Euphrates. 317 00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:54,020 Furthermore, the actual Jewish state, Israel, the one that came into existence, sees itself as an extension of Europe. 318 00:32:54,020 --> 00:32:58,310 It represents itself this way and conducts its affairs this way on the international stage. 319 00:32:58,340 --> 00:33:04,250 Only last year, Benjamin Netanyahu declared, and I quote him We are a part of the European culture. 320 00:33:04,430 --> 00:33:08,900 Europe ends in Israel, east of Israel. There is no more Europe. 321 00:33:09,350 --> 00:33:13,910 End of quote. It could almost have been the voice of Nordahl speaking from beyond the grave. 322 00:33:15,260 --> 00:33:20,690 And yet there are other voices from the grave. Voices that I hear, for example, 323 00:33:20,900 --> 00:33:27,889 in the story told by Aurora Levins Moralez Aurora is a Puerto Rican Ashkenazi Jewish 324 00:33:27,890 --> 00:33:32,870 feminist writer and a member of Jews of Colour in solidarity with Palestine. 325 00:33:33,530 --> 00:33:42,050 Her essay. Who Am I to Speak? Recalls a piece of family history, and I quote from her essay My Father's Family, she writes, 326 00:33:42,060 --> 00:33:46,340 lived in a small southern Ukrainian village where each spring the Easter sermons sent their 327 00:33:46,340 --> 00:33:50,060 neighbours rampaging against the Jewish farmers and craftspeople who lived among them. 328 00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:58,490 Well, she says, quoting again, a three cornered argument among the Jews in the village about what, if anything, would save the Jews. 329 00:33:58,730 --> 00:34:02,540 And I quote a little extract. The Orthodox said it was in God's hands. 330 00:34:03,620 --> 00:34:07,520 In other words, wait until the end of days when the Messiah comes. In the meantime, keep us. 331 00:34:08,570 --> 00:34:14,240 The Zionist said only Jews could be counted on to stand by Jews and we needed a defensible territory of our own. 332 00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:15,830 Where we called the shots. 333 00:34:16,240 --> 00:34:23,590 The Communists and socialists and anarchists said Only an alliance of all the working people can dismantle our oppression and everyone else's. 334 00:34:23,590 --> 00:34:31,479 End of quote. The small southern Ukrainian shtetl village from which Aurora's father's family came is, so to speak, 335 00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:38,140 the same shtetl from which the families of most Ashkenazi European Jews came, including my family. 336 00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:44,530 And the scene three cornered argument went on in the struggles of our grandparents and great grandparents and in the east end of London. 337 00:34:46,540 --> 00:34:49,690 Orthodox versus Zionist versus anti nationalist left. 338 00:34:49,720 --> 00:34:55,870 Actually, there were more than three corners to the argument. Some of the Orthodox Zionist, most of the Zionist were socialist and even Marxist. 339 00:34:56,860 --> 00:35:05,050 The debate over the Jewish future was complex, but the point is that this is the or seen the original and authentic setting for Zionism. 340 00:35:05,590 --> 00:35:10,900 This is the piece that is missing from the stock discourse that folds Zionism completely without remainder. 341 00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:18,100 And so the history of European imperialism and colonialism. The missing piece is the centrepiece of the story for many Jews. 342 00:35:18,310 --> 00:35:25,420 Not only dead, not only dead ones, it is certainly not the whole story. 343 00:35:26,050 --> 00:35:30,760 The whole story is a broken story, a story with two halves that do not fit together. 344 00:35:30,790 --> 00:35:34,210 Look at it this way. Like the Roman God, Janus. 345 00:35:34,750 --> 00:35:37,930 Zionism has two faces which look in opposite directions at once. 346 00:35:38,710 --> 00:35:43,270 That is to say, it belongs to two opposite histories at one, at the same time, on the one side. 347 00:35:43,540 --> 00:35:49,180 Zionism is part of the history of the Jews, a racialized minority, the internal other of Europe. 348 00:35:49,750 --> 00:35:53,920 And on the other side it is part of the story of British imperialism, specifically in the Middle East. 349 00:35:54,850 --> 00:36:01,180 On the one side, it was the exodus from Europe of a people persecuted for not being truly European. 350 00:36:01,690 --> 00:36:06,460 And on the other side, it was itself part of European expansion into non-European lands. 351 00:36:06,730 --> 00:36:09,610 Seen from one side, Zionism was a flight from Europe, 352 00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:16,720 a movement that saw itself as the return of an exiled people to an ancient homeland, not as an extension of a European motherland. 353 00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:21,460 It saw itself that way, whether you or I accept the narrative of return or not. 354 00:36:21,610 --> 00:36:23,260 And I don't. Right. 355 00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:31,600 But seen from the other side, the Arab side, the Jews who came as settlers and established a state where Europeans by any other name. 356 00:36:32,050 --> 00:36:36,520 And they were they were both. That's the point. They were Jewish, as distinct from European. 357 00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:43,989 And they were European as distinct from Arab. As the Palestinian academic Rafe Roke puts it, he's a colleague of mine. 358 00:36:43,990 --> 00:36:48,010 We both took part in a project called Arab-Jewish Engagements that met in Vienna for 359 00:36:48,010 --> 00:36:51,790 two years under the auspices of the Bruno Kreisky Forum for Intellectual Dialogue. 360 00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:58,870 As Raif puts it and I quote from his paper, the Europeans see the back of the Jewish refugee flow fleeing for his life. 361 00:36:59,500 --> 00:37:04,360 The Palestinians see the face of the settler colonialist taking over his land. 362 00:37:04,930 --> 00:37:14,980 One movement, two faces. Yes, Zionism is part of the history of European imperialism in the 20th century and it was a settler project. 363 00:37:15,490 --> 00:37:19,660 However, the plight of millions of marginalised European Jews in the first half of the century, 364 00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:22,240 together with their hopes and aspirations for a better life, 365 00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:28,990 are one thing the imperial ambitions of European powers that set out to colonise the globe in order to extend the scope of their rule, 366 00:37:29,140 --> 00:37:32,860 plunder resources and create captive markets for their products are another. 367 00:37:33,670 --> 00:37:41,530 When the left gives the impression that this subtle difference eludes them, when they fold Zionism to court into the story of European hegemony, 368 00:37:42,190 --> 00:37:49,690 then they erase from the record the arguments that went on in the struggle from which Aurora's father's family came and my family came, 369 00:37:50,140 --> 00:37:54,070 which is the back story for Zionism when they erase this back story. 370 00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:58,540 Is it any wonder if a ripple of discomfort spreads among the rank and file of Jews, 371 00:37:58,780 --> 00:38:04,000 including many of us who repudiate Zionism, who repudiate any form of Jewish nationalism, 372 00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:12,610 as I do when the radical left fold Zionism totally into the narrative of European hegemony over the Third World or the Global South, 373 00:38:13,300 --> 00:38:17,400 cutting it off from its roots and centuries of oppression of the Jewish people in Europe, 374 00:38:17,710 --> 00:38:22,840 which is the sense of the 1975 UN resolution equating Zionism with European racism. 375 00:38:23,470 --> 00:38:28,060 They lose the Jewish plot. In another sense, they revive it. 376 00:38:29,050 --> 00:38:33,580 The standard way in which the radical left places Zionism on the map of the world puts 377 00:38:33,580 --> 00:38:39,160 it in its very essence among the rich and powerful to classic anti-Semitic tropes. 378 00:38:40,430 --> 00:38:44,570 The capitalist class with its imperialist ambitions often is not. 379 00:38:44,660 --> 00:38:49,820 This is accompanied by sinister talk of a Jewish or Zionist lobby that wills incredible influence, 380 00:38:50,060 --> 00:38:55,400 influence out of all proportion to its full size, owning the media and controlling Western governments. 381 00:38:56,360 --> 00:39:00,979 Not that there is not an influential lobby on behalf of Israel in the US and other countries. 382 00:39:00,980 --> 00:39:08,420 There is. But lobbies are a natural feature of the political landscape, both in civil society and in the international diplomacy of sovereign states. 383 00:39:08,930 --> 00:39:14,210 In the Jewish case, however, this power is often depicted as if it verges on the supernatural. 384 00:39:14,750 --> 00:39:20,690 The long arm of Mossad is detected everywhere, pulling the strings and heartstrings of Jews around the world, 385 00:39:20,990 --> 00:39:26,350 even of anti Zionists, as my friend, Daphne's experience illustrates. 386 00:39:28,450 --> 00:39:33,790 Daphne, not her real name is a lifelong socialist and a Jewish anti-Zionist. 387 00:39:36,420 --> 00:39:40,049 Fiercely opposed to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza. 388 00:39:40,050 --> 00:39:42,720 As incidentally, many self-described Zionists are too. 389 00:39:44,370 --> 00:39:49,560 She is also a member of the Labour Party at a well-attended local constituency meeting last year. 390 00:39:49,590 --> 00:39:53,520 She proposed a motion criticising Ken Livingstone for linking Hitler and Zionism. 391 00:39:54,150 --> 00:39:58,560 The history of the Holocaust, Daphne told me, explaining her motion, I'm quoting her, 392 00:39:58,950 --> 00:40:02,280 is part of the identity of all Jews whenever they may feel about Israel. 393 00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:08,370 End of quote. When she introduced her motion to the meeting, she explained that it had nothing to do with Livingston's views on Israel. 394 00:40:09,300 --> 00:40:12,540 Her confreres begged to differ a quota. 395 00:40:12,570 --> 00:40:19,860 Everyone who spoke against the motion suggested that it was part of a plot by Israel or that it was an attempt to prevent discussion of Israel. 396 00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:25,410 Daphne was made to feel in her own words, and I quote her again an agent of the Israeli state. 397 00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:29,340 There have been countless stuffiness down the years. 398 00:40:29,790 --> 00:40:37,020 And as I know again from firsthand testimony, younger donors in the present who encounter similar attitudes, 399 00:40:38,100 --> 00:40:44,460 which is why you do not have to have an attachment to Israel to feel the profound disquiet of which I am speaking. 400 00:40:45,300 --> 00:40:53,040 Even if your views on political Zionism as an ideology and as a political project are as true for not kosher as deafness or as mine, 401 00:40:53,730 --> 00:40:57,000 you can feel this disquiet. It is enough simply to be Jewish. 402 00:40:58,860 --> 00:41:06,689 So when Corbyn points out the cases of antisemitism over the past three years represent less than 0.1% of Labour's membership, 403 00:41:06,690 --> 00:41:10,300 he misses the deeper point. The lava within the volcano. 404 00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:15,719 He misses the same point in his defence of a very troubling remark that he made about a particular 405 00:41:15,720 --> 00:41:22,500 group of Zionists in a speech he gave in 2013 saying that they did not understand English irony, 406 00:41:22,770 --> 00:41:26,130 despite, I quote, having lived in this country for a very long time. 407 00:41:26,730 --> 00:41:30,090 His defence is that he was using Zionists in the accurate political sense. 408 00:41:30,420 --> 00:41:39,590 That's a phrase that I'm quoting from him as if it were a purely technical term with a narrow definition and not, he said, as a euphemism for Jew. 409 00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:44,970 When it goes without saying, as far as I am concerned, that he did not intend it as a euphemism for Jew. 410 00:41:45,930 --> 00:41:50,670 However, in the first place, Zionist stands for a broad spectrum of cultural and political views, 411 00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:54,660 so there is no single, accurate political sense, as he suggested. 412 00:41:55,110 --> 00:42:00,210 And in the second place, it is a word that is contaminated by the discourse that demonises it. 413 00:42:00,690 --> 00:42:07,710 As George Benson has remarked, and I quote him, the adjective Zionist hits out like an insult. 414 00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:13,980 Even becoming diabolical is the word he uses, which means, of course, deriving from the devil. 415 00:42:15,030 --> 00:42:19,710 The word Zionist has a life of its own, independently of what anyone intends when they use it. 416 00:42:20,070 --> 00:42:28,049 Which does not mean we should stop using it, by the way. But perhaps the most egregious way in which Corbyn misses the point is when he 417 00:42:28,050 --> 00:42:32,700 protests that he is against all forms of racism and therefore condemns antisemitism. 418 00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:41,459 He condemns it, that is to say, as an anti-racist. But the demonising use of the word Zionism, the use that inexorable leads to the othering of Jews. 419 00:42:41,460 --> 00:42:49,770 I have argued, including an ad that is honest Jew like Daphne, is rooted precisely in a certain anti-racist tradition, 420 00:42:50,130 --> 00:42:58,230 the anti-racism to which the 1975 UN resolution gives expression and which seems to have found a permanent home in the discourse of the radical left. 421 00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:01,800 Corbyn, I am sure, will appreciate the irony of this. 422 00:43:04,020 --> 00:43:08,580 The final section, which is short, will be relieved to hear excoriating Corbyn. 423 00:43:12,340 --> 00:43:17,860 If anything, the excoriation of Corbyn by Jewish leadership has been ratcheted up since July. 424 00:43:20,170 --> 00:43:27,280 According to Marie Van Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies, Corbyn has and I quote her declared war on the Jews at home. 425 00:43:28,180 --> 00:43:32,500 Furthermore, he, quote, threatens the security of Britain, not just the Jews. 426 00:43:32,650 --> 00:43:41,790 That's all a quote. And not just Britain, a Cuban government, she has warned could be, and I'm quoting again, a threat to world security. 427 00:43:43,110 --> 00:43:49,470 She added in the same interview on Israeli television, I quote, The Tories have always shown themselves to be friends of the Jewish community. 428 00:43:50,720 --> 00:43:53,670 And meanwhile, Lord Sachs, the former chief rabbi, 429 00:43:53,940 --> 00:44:00,060 has compared Corbyn's irony remark to the notorious Rivers of Blood speech that Enoch Powell gave in 1968. 430 00:44:00,330 --> 00:44:07,380 It is hard not to see such hyperbolic and very public attacks on Corbyn as aimed at bringing him down. 431 00:44:08,910 --> 00:44:12,300 Which brings me back to the stick of dynamite, of which I spoke earlier. 432 00:44:13,470 --> 00:44:20,730 It appears that two different objectives are being conflated by Jewish leadership confronting antisemitism and toppling Corbyn. 433 00:44:21,810 --> 00:44:27,930 Corbyn might be a lightning rod for controversy over Zionism, but it is also a symbol of hope for millions of people in this country. 434 00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:34,170 People who suffer from the austerity measures of those same Tories of whom the Board of Deputies president speaks so warmly. 435 00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:39,570 As friends of the Jewish community. He is idolised by young people who chant his name. 436 00:44:39,870 --> 00:44:43,650 They see in him, rightly or wrongly, a politician cut from a different cloth, 437 00:44:43,860 --> 00:44:48,810 a man who cares for the poor, a hero who stands up to the rich bankers and the large corporations. 438 00:44:49,020 --> 00:44:50,520 They see him as a kind of saviour. 439 00:44:51,330 --> 00:44:59,280 But they also see correctly is an alliance of forces from without the party and from within ranged against this saviour. 440 00:45:00,540 --> 00:45:06,090 And in the vanguard apparently is quote, the Jewish community or for short, 441 00:45:06,240 --> 00:45:14,290 the Jews standing shoulder to shoulder and speaking with one voice and a cord deep in the bowels of Western antisemitism. 442 00:45:14,290 --> 00:45:19,830 This struck. I quipped earlier that the last time you spoke with one voice was announced Sinai. 443 00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:21,210 That was in the Book of Exodus. 444 00:45:21,870 --> 00:45:28,510 But according to another ancient book, not a Hebrew book this time there was a subsequent occasion when Jews spoke in unison. 445 00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:32,010 I refer to the story told in the penultimate chapter of the Gospel. 446 00:45:32,010 --> 00:45:39,090 According to Matthew Chapter 27, the crucial chapter which describes the death of Jesus at the behest of the Jews. 447 00:45:40,140 --> 00:45:46,650 As Matthew tells it, the Jewish leadership of the time, the chief priests and elders, led the Jewish mob. 448 00:45:46,900 --> 00:45:53,940 That's like the equivalent of the Jewish Leadership Council of the Board of Deputies led the Jewish mob in demanding the crucifixion of Jesus, 449 00:45:54,180 --> 00:45:58,770 voice of the poor, scourge of the moneychangers, saviour of the human race. 450 00:45:58,770 --> 00:46:05,490 Or so the evangelists would have us believe Pontius Pilate seen that the Jews would not be deprived of the innocent victim, 451 00:46:05,820 --> 00:46:19,890 proclaimed his own innocence. To which, and I quote from Matthew 2725, all the people answered and said his blood be on us and on our children. 452 00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:28,050 Jews speaking with one voice. It would, in my view, be anachronistic to call this chapter and this verse anti-Semitic. 453 00:46:28,050 --> 00:46:30,960 But they indicate the depth at which antisemitism lies. 454 00:46:32,310 --> 00:46:36,750 When Jewish leadership conflates the fight against anti-Semitism with the attempt to bring Corbyn down, 455 00:46:37,110 --> 00:46:40,230 it taps into the deepest vein of anti-Jewish bigotry. 456 00:46:41,190 --> 00:46:45,660 Not that it is remotely possible for Jews acting collectively to unseat the leader of the Labour Party. 457 00:46:45,670 --> 00:46:50,340 We don't have that kind of power. Despite a common anti-Semitic canard to the contrary. 458 00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:57,149 But if Jewish leadership persist in their campaign against Labour leadership, if they do not cease their vitriol, 459 00:46:57,150 --> 00:47:01,170 if they refuse the olive branch extended by the only sea and by Corbyn himself, 460 00:47:01,950 --> 00:47:06,510 the only sea will be consulting widely about guidelines for the new code of Conduct on anti-Semitism. 461 00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:13,710 If they fail to heed the words of Hillel, be like the sons of Aaron loving peace and pursuing peace. 462 00:47:13,950 --> 00:47:22,110 Pick about 1/12, then God help us. As a result of their relentless campaign in our name, we Jews collectively will be blamed. 463 00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:24,990 Talk about irony. Thank you.