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No, they are not anti-Semites

ANTISEMITTISM / Activists such as Loach and Corbyn want a historic settlement with the West's colonial intervention in other parts of the world. Also Israel's apartheid. This has been counteracted by campaigns that blacken them as anti-Semitic.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

Filmmaker Ken Loach's crime – like Jeremy Corbyn's – is not anti-Semitism. On the other hand, the cases against them are reminiscent of a time when class solidarity inspired the struggle for a better world.

Ken Loach, one of Britain's most acclaimed film directors, has spent more than half a century dramatizing the lives of the poor and vulnerable. His films have often portrayed the state's casual indifference or even active hostility when using force against ordinary people.

In March 2020 became loach threw his head into a relentless drama that could have been taken straight from one of his own films. This veteran chronicler of the shadowy sides of society was forced to withdraw as a judge in an art competition on anti-racism at a school after being wrongly accused of racism, without getting a chance to clean up.

The voice of the powerless

There should be little doubt about Loach's solid legitimacy as both an anti-racist and a strong supporter of the weak and reviled. In his films, he turns an unflinching eye on some of the ugliest episodes of British state oppression and brutality in Ireland, but he has also covered historic struggles against fascism in other parts of the world, from Spain to Nicaragua. Loach's critical gaze has mainly concentrated on Britain's shameful treatment of its own poor, its minorities and its refugees.

In his latest film I, Daniel Blake he examines how incomprehensible state bureaucracies have behaved in the implementation of their austerity policy. But the 2020 movie Sorry We Missed You thematized the precarious situation of workers on "zero-hour contracts", workers who are forced into grotesque contracts and to choose between desperation for work and responsibility for family.

An aggressive campaign to persuade unions, government departments, football clubs and politicians to stop funding or otherwise supporting this charity.

It is inevitable that his stark narratives of Britain's social and political dysfunction are – further amplified and revealing during the current corona pandemic – will lead to Loach being less celebrated at home than he is in the rest of the world, where his films are regularly honored with awards.

This may explain why the extraordinary accusations against Loach of racism – or, more specifically, anti-Semitism – have not been more clearly condemned by the British, as downright malicious.

Slander campaign

From the moment it was announced in February that Loach and Michael Rosen, a renowned left-wing children's poet, were to judge an anti-racism art competition for schools, the two faced a relentless and high-profile smear campaign. But given the fact that Rosen is Jewish, Loach had to take the brunt of the attacks.

The organization behind the award, Show Racism the Red Card, initially refused to give in to the bullying. But they were quickly faced with threats that they would be stripped of their status as a charity working to eradicate racism from the football community. In a statement, Loach's production company, Sixteen Films, wrote that Show Racism the Red Card had become "the subject of an aggressive campaign to persuade unions, government departments, football clubs and politicians to stop funding or otherwise supporting this charity and its work". The charity. More than 200 prominent figures in sport, academia and the arts came to Loach's defence, Sixteen Films noted, but the charity's existence was soon at stake. Faced with this fierce attack, Loach agreed in March 2020 to resign. This had been no ordinary protest. It was an organized action with ruthless efficiency that quickly received a very friendly reception in the corridors of power.

Ken Loach

American-style Israel lobby

The organization Board of Directors for British Jews (BoD) and the group Jewish Labor Movement (JLM) led the campaign against Loach and Rosen – two groups with which many on the left are well acquainted. They previously worked from both inside and outside Labor to help undermine Jeremy Corbyn, the party's elected leader. Corbyn resigned and was replaced by Keir Starmer, his former "Shadow Brexit Secretary", after Labor lost the December 2019 general election to the ruling Conservative Party. That this was the result of a protracted and secret campaign by the JLM to oust Corbyn was revealed two years ago in an undercover investigation filmed by Al-Jazeera. (Search "Al Jazeera Israel Lobby" on YouTube.)

JLM is a small, very pro-Israel lobby group associated with Labour. The BoD falsely claims to represent Britain's Jewish community and in reality acts as a lobby group for the most conservative sections of it. Echoing their latest campaign against Loach, the two groups accused Jeremy Corbyn of anti-Semitism and of leading what they called a " institutionally anti-Semitic” Labour. Despite attracting a lot of uncritical media attention for their allegations against Corbyn, neither organization ever produced any evidence beyond the purely anecdotal. The reason for these smear campaigns has hardly been a secret. Loach and Corbyn have shared a long history as passionate defenders of Palestinian rights, at a time when Israel is intensifying its efforts to extinguish any hope the Palestinians may have of Palestine ever gaining the status of an independent state or the right to self-determination. in recent years BoD and JLM have used the pure American lobbying tactic – determined to remove criticism of Israel from the public. It is no coincidence: the worse Israel's abuses against the Palestinians have become, the more difficult these groups have made it to talk about justice for the Palestinians.

Loach and Corbyn have shared a long history as passionate defenders of Palestinian rights.

Starmer, Mr Corbyn's successor, did his best to placate the lobby during last month's Labor leadership campaign, happily mistaking criticism of Israel for anti-Semitism to avoid a similar confrontation. His victory was welcomed by both BoD and JLM.

Character assassination

But the treatment of Ken Loach shows that the use of anti-Semitism in the fight against other political positions is far from over and will continue to be used against prominent critics of Israel. It is a sword hanging over future Labor leaders, forcing them to systematically remove party members who point out either Israel's increasing abuses against the Palestinians or the nefarious role of pro-Israel lobby groups such as BoD and JLM.

The basis for the accusations against Loach was flimsy to say the least – rooted in a circular logic that has lately become the norm when dealing with alleged examples of anti-Semitism. Loach's crime, according to BoD and JLM, was that he denies – in line with all the facts – that Labor is institutionally anti-Semitic. Loach's demand for evidence for these two organisations' claims that Labor should have an anti-Semitism crisis is now itself treated as evidence of anti-Semitism, and this is equated with holocaust denial. But when Show Racism the Red Card first refused to budge themselves, BoD and JLM made another accusation. Show Racism the Red Card appeared to use this as a reason to withdraw their support for Loach, after the allegations had caused them increasing problems.

The IHRA definition is used in a smear campaign

The new claim against Loach did not consist so much in character assassination as in character assassination via "guilt by association".

The BoD and JLM raised the uncontroversial fact that a year ago Loach responded to an email from a member of the GMB union who had been expelled. Peter Gregson sought Loach's professional review of a video in which he accused the union of victimizing him for his opposition to a new definition of anti-Semitism drawn up by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) – which effectively equates anti-Semitism with criticism of The Israel.IHRA definition was then imposed on Labor in 2018 by the same groups – BoD and JLM – largely as a technique to isolate Corbyn. There was great opposition from rank-and-file Labor members to this definition.

To use anti-Semitism in the fight against other political positions.

Pro-Israel lobby groups liked this new definition – where 7 out of 11 examples of anti-Semitism involve criticism of Israel rather than Jews – and it made it impossible for Corbyn and his supporters to criticize Israel without being met with claims that it was anti-Semitic to do so.

Loach was among the many Corbyn supporters who tried to stop the endorsement of the IHRA definition. So it was hardly surprising – given Gregson's allegations and other parallel stories that Loach has documented for decades – that the filmmaker responded with strong criticism of Gregson's video. Only later was Loach told that other concerns had also been raised about Gregson's behaviour, including an allegation that he had fallen out with a Jewish member of the trade union. Loach distanced himself from Gregson and supported GMB's decision. Then this case should have been closed. Loach is a public figure who sees it as part of his role to get involved when ordinary people need help – anything else, given his political views, would make him a hypocrite. But he is not omniscient. He cannot know the story behind every single person who comes his way. He cannot scrutinize all contacts before sending an email. However, it would be foolish to take the messages of concern directed at Loach from the BoD and JLM for good fish. In fact, their opposition to him is linked to a far more fundamental rift over what can and cannot be said about Israel, and in which the IHRA definition serves as its main weapon.

The attacks from the BoD and JLM are becoming an increasingly toxic mixture revolving around anti-Semitism, which now dominates the British public.

Through the recent publication of its recently so-called "Ten promises", the BoD has required all future Labor leaders to accept, among other things, IHRA's anti-Semitism-
definition, or suffer the same fate as Corbyn.

Fight against fascism

It is no coincidence that Loach's case echoes so strongly the hunt for Corbyn. Both are rare public figures who, over decades, have devoted their time and energy to defending the weak against the strong, and to defending those least able to defend themselves.

Both are survivors of a waning generation of political activists and intellectuals who continue to fight in the spirit of class struggle, based on universal rights rather than the more fashionable, but highly divisive, identity and culture war politics. Loach and Corbyn are the post-war remnants of a British a left whose inspirations were very different from the political center and the right – and from the influence on many of today's youth.

In effect equates anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel.

At home, they were inspired by their parents' anti-fascist struggle in the 1930s against Oswald Moseley's brownshirts, for example in the Battle of Cable Street. And in their youth they were encouraged by the class solidarity that built a National Health Service, the NHS, in the late 1940s – one that, for the first time, provided healthcare to everyone in Britain.

Abroad, they were encouraged by the worldwide popular struggle against institutional racist apartheid in South Africa, a struggle which gradually weakened Western governments' support for the white regime. And they spearheaded the last major political mass mobilization against the government's lies to justify the US/UK war of aggression against Iraq in 2003. But like most of this dying left, they are haunted by the biggest failure of their generation in international solidarity. Their protests did not end the many decades of colonial oppression against the Palestinian people sponsored by the same Western states (USA, UK, Norway...) that once supported apartheid in South Africa. The parallels between these two Western-backed settler-colonial the projects, heavily veiled by British politicians and the media, are striking and disturbing to them.

Get rid of the outclass policy!

Loach and Corbyn are demonized as anti-Semites. On the other side of the Atlantic, a parallel project in the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party is trying to silence Bernie Sanders (not so easily, since he is Jewish!). This shows Western political and established media's attempt at a public cleansing of this good, old form of class consciousness.

Activists like Loach and Corbyn want a historic settlement with the West's colonial meddling in other parts of the world, including the disastrous legacy of so-called immigrants – who today return "back" to the West as refugees. It was the West that first plundered foreign lands for centuries, then armed the dictators who were supposed to bring independence to these former colonies – and now today the same societies are invaded or attacked under the guise of veiled "humanitarian interventions". In the same way, the internationalist rejects , the class-based struggle waged by Loach and Corbyn, a politics of identity – which instead of acknowledging the West's long history of crimes committed against women, minorities and refugees – today derails the energies of the marginalized into a competition for who gets to sit at the table with the white elite. It is precisely this kind of "false consciousness" that causes women to be cheered on when they lead the military-industrial complex, the expectation that a black man will become American president (who only uses his power to set new records for extrajudicial killings abroad and suppression of political dissent at home).

Israel is a key pillar of an informal Western military alliance.

Loach and Corbyn's grassroots activism is the antithesis of modern politics where corporations use their vast wealth to lobby and buy politicians, who in turn use their spin doctors to manipulate public discourse through highly partisan and sympathetic corporate media.

Empty worries

BoD and JLM are closely integrated in this latter type of politics. They exploit a political identity to secure a seat at the table and then use it to lobby for their pro-Israel causes.

If this seems unfair, remember that while the BoD and JLM have hammered home the message of a supposed anti-Semitism crisis on the left, which they have essentially defined as hostility to Israel, the right and far right have been given a free ticket to promote ever higher levels of white nationalism and racism against minorities. These two organizations have not only turned a blind eye to the rise of the nationalist right – which is now integrated into the British government – but have supported it. In particular, the BoD's leadership – as well as Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who publicly blasted Corbyn as anti-Semitic days before last year's general election – barely bothering to hide his support for the Conservative government and Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Their declared concern about racism and their attacks on charities such as Show Racism the Red Card ring all the more hollow when see their own records of supporting racism. Both have repeatedly supported Israel in the country s human rights abuses and attacks on Palestinians, including Israel's deployment of snipers to shoot men, women and children protesting a more than decade-long blockade strangling Gaza. The two organizations have remained studiously silent on Israel's racist policy of allowing soccer teams from illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank play in the football league in violation of FIFA rules. And they have supported the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund in Britain, even though it funds racist settlement projects and afforestation programs intended to drive Palestinians from their land. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.

"Identity politics"

The fact that the BoD and JLM have been able to exert such influence against Loach with claims for which there is no evidence indicates how enthusiastically the Israeli lobby has been integrated into the British establishment.

Israel is a key pillar of an informal Western military alliance that wants to project its power into the oil-rich Middle East. Israel is exporting its repressive technology and surveillance systems—fine-tuned to control the Palestinians—to Western states hungry for more sophisticated control systems. And Israel has helped tear international jurisprudence to shreds by cementing the occupation as well as paving the way for legitimizing torture and extrajudicial executions – such as from the US.

In true Orwellian fashion, they turn the accusation of racism on its head.

Israel's central place in this power matrix is ​​rarely discussed – since Western authorities have no interest in having their hidden intentions and double standards exposed. BoD and JLM help to control and enforce this silence about Israel, an important Western ally. In true Orwellian fashion, they turn the charge of racism on its head – using it against our most prominent and staunch anti-racists. Figures like Loach and Corbyn – veterans of class struggle, who have spent decades immersed in the struggle to build a better society – now cast into oblivion and crushed in the name of identity politics. Should this perversion of our democratic discourse be allowed to continue, our world will be doomed to become even uglier, more divided and more divided.

Translated by John Y. Jones

Jonathan Cook blogs at Substack and writes for a number of journals. He has lived in the West Bank in Palestine. This article is from 2020, then with the title "The smearing of Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn is the face of our
new toxic politics".

John Y. Jones
John Y. Jones
Cand. Philol, freelance journalist affiliated with MODERN TIMES

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