It’s the Holocaust, stupid!

"The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz!"

Zvi Rex, Israeli psychiatrist

 

On 5 July 2024, King Charles III approved the appointment of Rt Hon Keir Starmer as UK Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury.  Rt Hon David Lammy was appointed as Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs.

On 14 July, the latter announced that the UK would “restart funding to UNRWA in order to get aid as quickly as possible to those who need it in Gaza”.  The funding had been stopped when some UNRWA ‘humanitarian workers’ were found to have taken active part in the 7 October attack and massacres.  But the new government declared that it was

“confident that UNRWA is taking action to ensure it meets the highest standards of neutrality”.

“Is taking action” is an interesting way to put it: it clearly refers to something that may bear fruit in the (undefined) future; but the funding resumed with immediate effect.

On 25 July, the UK Labour government announced that it would withdraw the objections (submitted by the previous administration) to the issuance, by the International Criminal Court, of arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence.

On 2 September, the UK government banned the export of certain weapons to Israel.  The announcement explained:

“On day one in office, the Foreign Secretary commissioned a thorough review into Israel’s compliance with International Humanitarian Law, and has travelled to Israel twice since being appointed to the role to understand the situation on the ground.”

“On day one in office” would seem to indicate a huge sense of urgency.  These three measures – all taken within 60 days of its appointment – were by far the most prominent foreign affairs decisions taken by the new government; and, in fact, arguably the most forceful decisions it took in any area.  It seems that the Jewish state and its behaviour is – for some reason – the new UK government’s top concern.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy visited Israel twice in his first 60 days in office, "to understand the situation on the ground". He concluded that Israel might be breaching the laws of war in Gaza, and banned the export of some weapons to the Jewish state. Here he is on a previous visit to Israel, organised in 2022 by Labour Friends of Israel. Some friend!

On the other hand, the Labour government also did something else, though perhaps not “[o]n day one in office”: it commissioned a review of the national curriculum for schools in England.  Of course, the matter of what British children are taught in British schools is not quite as burning as whatever happens in Gaza; so the curriculum review will take at least a year, not a fortnight.  It is scheduled to report sometime in autumn 2025.

Well, I suppose education reforms can wait; but some things clearly cannot.  Thus, already on 16 September this year, Prime Minister Starmer announced that, as part of the review to be completed in a year’s time, he was making “Holocaust education” a mandatory topic of study in every school in England.  Of course, the national curriculum – which is followed by the vast majority of schools in England – already includes “Holocaust education”.  And Mr. Starmer’s decision won’t be applied with immediate effect anyway – but only “when the new curriculum comes in” – i.e. after the review is completed, hopefully in autumn 2025.  So why did he announce it already – and with such fanfare?

In opposition, Sir Keir Starmer promised to mend the Labour Party's relationship with the Jewish community. Once in office, he started by making 3 anti-Israel decisions, in quick succession. No wonder that he felt he had to throw the Jews a bone. And he chose "Holocaust education".

Clearly, Rt Hon Starmer needed to balance his government’s slew of hostile measures against the Jewish state with ‘doing something good for the Jews’.  But why “Holocaust education”?  Sure, the memory of the Shoah is a very important part of contemporary Jewish identity.  But, when it comes to their expectations from the government, British Jews have many pressing concerns: “Preserve the memory of the Holocaust” was #8 on the list of ‘Ten Commandments’ included in ‘The Jewish Manifesto for the General Election 2024’ published by the Board of Deputies of British Jews.  (Interestingly, the cover of that brochure boasted a picture of Jews holding up photos of Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas!)

So why bring up the Holocaust?  Jews have been accused of being obsessed with the Shoah.  But it seems many Gentiles are fascinated by it, too; only in different ways.

Let us remember: in the ‘enlightened’ 20th century, the world attempted to murder its Jews and wipe out their memory.  I say ‘the world’ advisedly: while it was Nazi Germany that led that ‘effort,’ members of many other nations lent ‘a helping hand’.  From Ukrainian guards to Polish peasants, from Vichy government officials to Norwegian collaborators – they all played an active role in the Shoah.  Fortunately, the Nazis never conquered the isle of Britain; but even there there were those only too eager to take part in ‘freeing the world from Jewish domination’.

Of those who did not murder Jews themselves (or delivered them to be slaughtered), many were guilty by omission: the vast majority of countries refused to accept Jewish refugees fleeing unimaginable threats and persecution; the British government of the time even callously banned Jews from fleeing to the ‘Jewish Home’ they were supposed to establish.  As for the United States, it responded to European Jews’ desperate need for a safe haven by… further reducing immigration quotas – in particular (and purely coincidentally, of course!) from Germany and Poland.

Ultimately, of course, nations went to war against the Axis; soldiers spilled their blood to defeat it.  But no country fought to save the Jews – they did so to defend their own interests.  The enormity of what was being done to the Jews eventually became known to the Allies, not in the least because so many trains were crisscrossing Europe to deliver raw material to the Nazi death factories.  But, if Hitler hated Jews enough to take those trains away from the Nazi war effort and employ them as vehicles of murder – the Allies didn’t love Jews that much; otherwise, they might’ve used their clear air superiority to destroy those railways.

No wonder that, when finally the war ended and the horrors became widely known, many felt – deep in their hearts – a sense of guilt.  No, not because they felt they contributed to those horrors themselves – the perpetrators were soon declared to be just the Germans and, even among them, only a small circle of Nazis, most of whom were by then conveniently dead.  No, the reason many people secretly felt guilty was that, looking candidly into their souls, they discovered (shhhh, don’t tell anyone!) some of the same feelings that the Nazis harboured.  After all, the latter did not invent antisemitism; the Holocaust was but the culmination of many centuries of hatred, persecution and massacres.

Guilt – as any good Jew or Catholic will tell you – is a very oppressive feeling.  And so, the ovens of Majdanek had barely cooled down, when denial started.  Already by 1948, a French ‘intellectual’ and journalist was publishing a book ‘demonstrating’ that the Shoah was a false narrative.  Other ‘intellectuals’ and ‘academics’ followed suit.

The problem with Holocaust denial is, however – from the point of view of its promoters – that it’s too easily debunked.  Too many people were involved; in too many places; there were too many surviving witnesses; and, despite Nazi efforts, there was also physical evidence.  If – as the deniers claim – the gas chambers were only used to de-lice clothes, it is rather difficult to explain what happened to the people who wore those thousands of shoes left in a dusty warehouse.  The denial approach is still alive and kicking of course – massively in Muslim countries and occasionally in Europe, N. America and elsewhere.  But it struggled to attract a mass following – not in the least because its promoters tended to be obviously unsavoury characters: Islamists and neo-Nazis.

A more appealing way to deal with the guilt is Holocaust trivialisation – promoted primarily by ‘progressives’ like Jeremy Corbyn or Jackie Walkers.  The Holocaust – proclaim supporters of this particular brand of deniers – indeed happened.  But… it didn’t happen only to Jews, it affected many other categories of victims (Communists, Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, disabled people).  And ‘the Holocaust’ was really just ‘one Holocaust’ among many; perhaps not quite as horrific as the transatlantic slave trade – to cite a favourite item on that list.

Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone (right) ‘resigned’ from the Labour Party. Former Vice-Chair of Momentum Jackie Walker (left) was expelled. Both are notorious for having made very ‘controversial’ statements involving Jews and the Holocaust.

But if the Holocaust never happened; or if it happened as just one such event among many others; then what explains the widespread belief in the contrary (i.e., that it did happen and was an extraordinary, exceptional event)?  If the deniers are really truth-tellers, then there’s a conspiracy to be found in the opposite camp.

And who are more credibly accused of conspiracy than the Jews?  Of course, blaming ‘the Jews’ as such has become a little unfashionable.  But hey, there is by now a Jewish state.  From the point of view of the deniers (of all tinges and methodologies), Israel is an ideal scapegoat: on one hand, it’s mostly Jewish – so mostly suspect; but on the other hand, one can attack that ‘mostly’ by referring to them as ‘Israelis’, thus avoiding the potential pitfall of bashing ‘the Jews’ – like a certain fellow with a funny moustache!

By the mid-1950s, all references to Jews as its main victims have been ‘expunged’ from the ‘history’ of the Holocaust – as told by the Soviet Union and by many ‘progressive’ circles in the West. By mid-1970s Israel was commonly accused – in the same circles – of ‘weaponising’ the Shoah to ‘justify the crimes against the Palestinian people’.  Eventually, someone (a renegade Jew, just like in the times of inquisitorial trials) came up with the term ‘Holocaust industry’; a term invented to describe not the industrialised murder of Jews – but the Jewish ‘exaggerate’ propensity to ‘over-memorialise’ and ‘exploit’ it.

This form of denial is, it seems, much easier for people to ‘buy’ into.  A 2017 survey found that just 2% of the population strongly agreed/tended to agree with the proposition ‘The Holocaust is a myth’.  ‘The Holocaust has been exaggerated’ gained the agreement of 4%.  But no less than 10% agreed that ‘Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes’.  (‘No less’ is not a figure of speech: this particular question elicited a lot of ‘Neither agree nor disagree’ responses (19%), as well as ‘Don’t know/Refuse to respond’ (15%).  So, in addition to the 10% that agreed, 34% of respondents abstained – for some reason – from providing a clear answer to that question.)

But ‘merely’ accusing Jews of nefariously ‘exploiting Holocaust victimhood’ doesn’t go far enough in terms of relieving the guilt.  Because the implication is that, whether ‘exploiting’ or not, they were victims.

How about accusing the Jews themselves of somehow bringing that catastrophe upon themselves?  Of course, accusing an entire population of ‘deserving’ to be massacred is a bit problematic in ‘progressive’ circles.  And before 1948 there was no Jewish state to blame.  But, conveniently, there was a movement aiming to establish one; a movement that, for some reason, was desperate to save Jews from the claws of the Nazis – especially by bringing them to Palestine Mandate.  By 1982, the Institute of Oriental Studies (no, not SOAS; this was IOS, affiliated with the Soviet Academy of Sciences!) was awarding a PhD to a certain PLO leader called Mahmoud Abbas – upon the successful defence of his thesis “The Relationship Between Zionists and Nazis, 1933-1945”.  Few people read this piece of original research, but the theme itself is still popular among hard-leftists – see comments made by former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone in 2016.

For some, however, such theories still don’t go far enough.  After all, even if one were to believe that ‘Zionists’ collaborated with the Nazis (or, in Livingstone’s version, that ‘Hitler supported Zionism’), those Zionists would have been no worse than so many others on the European continent.  And the victims were still Jews!

No, the ultimate guilt-relieving medicine is Holocaust inversion.  If one can persuade oneself that the Jews (or the Jewish state, as the guilt-free euphemism for ‘the Jews’) perpetrate ‘a Holocaust’ themselves – then one can finally hate with no niggling unease.  One can even proffer one’s hatred as a noble endeavour, a kind of belatedly-found and cost-free anti-Nazism.  What better way of bearing the Mark of Cain, than wearing it as badge of honour?

It’s not easy, but with persistence everything is possible.  The Naqba can be narrated as ‘a Holocaust’; Gaza Strip can be equated to ‘a concentration camp’; and bombing Israel with thousands of rockets can be likened to ‘the Revolt of the Warsaw Ghetto’.

Can you name one symbol – other than the Star of David – that is so often associated with the Swastika?

The intention was clear.  Of course, one can believe – especially if one is so inclined – that Israel’s behaviour towards the Palestinians is bad, bad, bad.  But there is ‘bad’ (and there’s no penury of bad behaviour in the world) – and then there is ‘Nazi’.  Others are occasionally accused of Nazi-like behaviour; when it comes to Israel, such ‘metaphors’ abound.  There’s an overwhelming propensity to cast Jews (and only Jews) in the role of Nazis.

In fact, some people found creative ways to claim that Jews are actually worse than Nazis.  After all, unlike the original Nazis, Jews have been themselves victims of the Holocaust; so, as an Honourable Member of the House of Commons once said, they should know better, shouldn’t they??

A 1998 article (published by two ‘researchers’ holding academic positions in London and Paris) stated:

“[T]he Holocaust does not free the Jewish state or the Jews of accountability.  On the contrary, the Nazi crime compounds their moral responsibility and exposes them to greater answerability.  They are the ones who have escaped the ugliest crime in history, and now they are perpetrating reprehensible deeds against another people.”

Ah, but there was still something missing: after all, “reprehensible deeds” is rather weak – if you are to accuse somebody of perpetrating ‘a Holocaust’.  The Holocaust was more than displacement, ghettos and concentration camps; it was history’s largest and most obvious genocide.  Indeed, in most people’s minds, it is synonymous with ‘genocide’.

So, when a truly genocidal attack by Hamas triggered a harsh Israeli response; and when that response resulted (if we are to believe Hamas) in more than 40,000 Palestinian deaths; that’s when the final component fell in place.

40,000 is a large number, but hardly an unusual one.  According to a 2021 UN Development Programme report, the Saudi-led war in Yemen (prosecuted among others with British weapons) caused some 377,000 fatalities – around 150,000 from the fighting itself and the rest from lack of safe water, food and medical care.  The Saudis, by the way, did what Israel arguably should have done: they did not wait for the Houthis to attack them, but hit them first – on the assumption that an Iranian-sponsored terror group on the border is enough of a casus belli.  They also imposed a comprehensive blockade on Yemen, which according to the UN resulted in 3.5 million cases of acute malnutrition and 131,000 deaths between 2015 and 2020.

One of the indirect victims of the war in Yemen.  A 2016 UNICEF report claimed "one child dies every 10 minutes because of malnutrition, diarrhoea and respiratory-tract infections."

But all that’s irrelevant, ain’t it?  Saudi Arabia has not been accused of genocide; it hasn’t been dragged before an international court.  Its leaders aren’t going to be indicted for committing ‘the crime of extermination’.

Will Netanyahu be indicted?  Will Israel be found guilty of genocide?  It doesn't matter, folks.  The words have been spoken; the accusation is all that matters.  The image of Jews as Nazis has now been planted into the minds of those who did not harbour it already.

In short, the Saudis aren’t Jews.  There’s no specific interest – and certainly no morbid satisfaction – in accusing them of perpetrating a new Holocaust.  When Saudis kill children, it’s bad luck; when Jews do it, it’s – for some reason – fascinating...

Night is the new day, folks!  Haniyeh’s a moderate, Netanyahu the devil incarnate.  Hamas is progressive, the PLO moderate, Isreal is a racist state.  Hizb’ullah are brave and noble warriors, the J… err… Zionists are the new Nazis.  Palestinians are the new Jews, and the old ones – having failed to internalise the valuable lessons of the Shoah – are holocausting them poor bastards!  They need to be stopped!  Otherwise, what’s the point of getting all that “Holocaust Education”??  What better way to honour all those dead Jews than prevent the ones alive from doing to others what’s been done to them?  It’s time to finally apply the ‘Never again!’ injunction and all the international treaties that – as we all know – have been put in place precisely with this in mind.  The way to ensure this never happens again is to immediately restore the ceasefire that was in place before 7/10.  The way to preserve peace in the Middle East is to deny Israel weapons.  And put them nasty Isrealis in the dock, not in the Hague, but at Nuremberg – now that’s an idea!

After all, we live in a just, fair and delightful world, governed by the International Humanitarian Law.  Enjoy!!!

Is there a future for the Labour Movement?

 

The Movement

I don’t care what your pet ideology is, dear reader – if indeed you care to have one.  If you are intellectually honest, you have to recognise the great services that the Labour Movement rendered to society as a whole – to us all.  If we work 40 hours a week or less; if we are less in danger to die or be maimed for life as a result of unsafe work conditions; if we expect to be treated with dignity at work and take home a decent wage – we owe all this to the men and women who, starting sometime in the 19^th century, fought – often at great peril and disadvantage to themselves – to achieve these things and others, for all of us.  The first trade unionists.  We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

But at some point (also in the 19^th century), the Movement split.  It might not have been so obvious at the time, but part of the movement retained its initial purpose – to win a better life for workers; another part concluded that that task could not be achieved without ‘taking power’, without ‘defeating the Bosses’.  One part of the Movement chose evolution; the other revolution.  While both may have talked about class struggle, one interpreted the term as ‘quest for justice’; the other – as ‘war’.

The former served as inspiration for the social-democratic parties that have contributed to building the liberal democracy we currently enjoy in the UK and the free world in general; the latter brought us Communism, Stalinism and the gulag.  One raised the oppressed – the other raised new oppressors.  As one Jewish smart-ass said, 2,000 years ago: “by their fruits ye shall know them”.

This article is not a pro-Labour spiel – not even from a ‘Blairite’ perspective.  Nor is it a rant against Labour. The Labour Movement has done great things in the past; but it does not mean that we should forever support it, or support anything that calls itself ‘Labour’, ‘social-democrat’ or ‘socialist’.  It also does not mean we shouldn’t.  Political movements change.  In the US, the Republican Party was once a driving force for the Abolitionist Movement.  These days, most people identify it with social conservatism.

If we wish to continue to enjoy liberal democracy (and we do; we’d be fools not to), it behoves us to weigh every political strain not for what it did yesteryear, but for what it has to offer today, tomorrow and the day after.  For this reason, while taking stock of the past, this article wants to look into the future.

The Report

On Thursday, 29 October 2020, UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published its report entitled “Investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party”.  It’s a long (130 pages) document, written in a cool, detached, formal language.  If you cannot be bothered to read it all, here’s the concise but accurate summary produced by my brilliant friend Ged Ornstein:

The EHRC found that the Labour Party had:

1.      Acted unlawfully in that agents of the LP had used antisemitic tropes and had suggested that complaints of antisemitism were fake or smears.

2.      Breached the Equality Act 2010 by acts of indirect discrimination relating to political interference (i.e. the leadership interfered in the disciplinary processes) and a lack of adequate training.

3.      An opaque and inefficient complaints mechanism;

4.      An inadequate training programme with regards to antisemitism;

5.      Disregarded abusive social media content.

The EHRC is a statutory body endowed with legal powers and concerned primarily with breaches of the Equality Act.  But it also recognises that racism is more than a law infringement; it is a violation of the moral values that form the foundation of a liberal, democratic society.  In the words of the report:

"…tackling antisemitism isn’t just about procedures. It is also about making sure that the Labour Party has a culture that clearly reflects its zero tolerance of antisemitism and indeed of all forms of discrimination."

And, in that respect, the Commission found

"a culture within the Party which, at best, did not do enough to prevent antisemitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it."

While Ged’s five points are damning from a legal point of view, I would argue that the ‘culture’ problem is even more troubling.  Clearly, I’m not the only one who thinks this is the case: the term ‘culture’ appears no less than 11 times in the EHRC report, usually accompanied by a strong recommendation for the current culture to be changed.

Strangely, the ‘culture’ problem has gone almost entirely unnoticed by the army of journalists, pundits and political activists that presumed to ‘interpret’ the report.  Yet I would argue that it is its most important (and most troubling) finding.

Firstly, it takes a large number of individuals to create ‘a culture’.  Which means that – if not antisemitism itself – the propensity to ignore or accept anti-Jewish racism resides in the hearts and minds of many a Labour Party member and supporter.  A failure of leadership may be the reason why this ‘culture’ was allowed to strike roots and fester; but that does not mean that merely changing the leadership gets rid of the ‘culture’.  The old saying ‘a fish rots from the head down’ does not imply that cutting off the head eliminates the rot, once it’s been allowed to affect the body.

Secondly, correcting procedures and designing suitable complaints mechanisms is eminently feasible; but (as we all know) changing the hearts and minds of many individuals is not easily achieved, even with good, determined leadership.

If we needed (more) proof of this ‘cultural’ problem – and of the fact that it persists unhindered – it was supplied in spades in the immediate aftermath of the report publication.

And I am not just talking about Jeremy Corbyn’s reaction, or the ‘solidarity’ he received – not only from prominent members of the Labour Party and of the Unions, but also from numerous ‘ordinary’ members and supporters.

Speaking as a panellist on BBC’s programme ‘Questions time’, American-British playwright Bonnie Greer first waxed lyrical about ‘trauma’ and declared that antisemitism in the Labour Party ‘makes her sick’.  Touching indeed – except that she went on to say:

"I’m a Labour voter, I will always vote Labour, I became a citizen so I could vote Labour, I will always vote for the Labour Party as I think it is the best coalition of the left for this country."

Well, if the Labour Party is guilty of illegal acts of racial harassment and discrimination; if, through its ‘sickening’ behaviour it caused ‘trauma’ to an entire community – how can anyone promise to ‘always’, unconditionally vote for it?  How can one see it as “the best […] for this country”?  Isn’t this a most revealing display of the ‘culture’ referred to by the EHRC?  A ‘culture’ which, to put it very mildly, accepts antisemitism (but certainly not other forms of bigotry) as a rather minor issue, something that – at a pinch – one can put up with, in view of the grander aspirations, of ‘what’s best for the country’?

Bonnie Greer: "I'll always vote Labour"

As if to demonstrate the callousness and immense hypocrisy of that position, Ms. Greer later proceeded to accuse Donald Trump of racism and to ask rhetorically:

"How can anyone vote for a man with that kind of thing?"

Herein lies the ‘culture’ problem: not just, as some may think, in the antisemitic acts or words of a Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Livingston or Chris Williamson; but, I strongly suggest, in the failure of people like Bonnie Greer – usually so very sensitive to even ‘subtle’ manifestations of racism – to recognise anti-Jewish racism for what it is: the oldest, most obstinate and arguably most harmful form of racial intolerance.

In and of itself, changing the Labour leadership and the party procedure books won’t get rid of antisemitism – any more than promulgating the Equality Act (in and of itself) got rid of anti-black prejudice.

 

The Problem

To even attempt to find a solution to this painful issue, one has to try and understand the roots of the problem: why is it that people who define themselves as ‘anti-racists’ have a weird blind spot (if not a tendency to harbour it themselves) when it comes to antisemitism?  Why is it that people whose entire world view is built around social justice fail to recognise injustice?  And why is it that those whose fundamental yearning is to eliminate oppression end up tolerating or even practicing it against Jews?

Here’s a thing: this isn’t just a problem of psychology – but of ideology.  The Cambridge Dictionary defines ‘ideology’ as

"a set of beliefs or principles, especially one on which a political system, party, or organization is based."

The same dictionary defines the term ‘religion’ as

"the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or any such system of belief and worship."

Both ‘ideology’ and ‘religion’ are sets (or systems) of beliefs.  In effect, an ideology is nothing but a God-less religion – a religion in which God is replaced by some other ‘absolute principle’, by some sort of Kantian ‘categorical imperative’.  Depending on the ideology, such imperative may range from ‘social justice’ to ‘purity of race’; the point is that we are talking about convictions based on faith – however much the believers tend to see them as absolute and self-evident.

Just as there are degrees of religiosity, there are also degrees of ideological zeal.  There is, in that sense, a form of ‘ideological fundamentalism’, the secular equivalent of religious fundamentalism.

Religious fundamentalism consists of a rigid, binary social taxonomy (‘believers’ vs. ‘non-believers’ or ‘pagans’) that forms the basis for a type of supremacism (the former are inherently and unquestionably superior to the latter).  Ideological fundamentalism is very similar – think Marx’s lionisation of ‘the working class’ and demonisation of ‘the bourgeoisie’, or the Corbynite ‘socialists’ raging against ‘Tory scum’ and ‘Blairites’.

Of course, social taxonomy is not the exclusive realm of fundamentalists.  We are all in the habit of classifying people, of neatly arranging them in categories.  This is how the human brain works.  But, while we happily resort to simplification and generalisation to try and extract some order out of chaos, most of us realise that human beings are complex: one can be a dog lover and a thief; a loving father and a ruthless terrorist; a charity worker and a rapist.  But, for the fundamentalist, such complexity cannot be allowed to exist; reality must be reduced to black and white: one must be either good or bad; ‘with us’ or ‘against us’; ‘oppressed’ or ‘oppressor’; pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian.  ‘To be supported’ or ‘to be opposed’.  In the fundamentalist world view, these categories are existentially opposed, absolute, immovable, one-dimensional and definitional.

Here's an example from John Rees – a former leading member of the Socialist Workers Party and co-founder of the Stop the War Coalition:

"Socialists should unconditionally stand with the oppressed against the oppressor, even if the people who run the oppressed country are undemocratic and persecute minorities, like Saddam Hussein."

Saddam Hussein may have murdered (en-masse, using chemical weapons) tens of thousands of innocent people.  But in the eyes of Rees, his faith, nationality, skin colour and political adversaries place him firmly in the ranks of ‘the Good’, the ‘anti-imperialists’ deserving of ‘unconditional’ support.  If Rees’s “unconditionally support” does not bring to your mind Bonnie Greer’s “I will always vote Labour”, then you’re missing the point here.

 

The Jews

Historically, fundamentalists (whether religious or secular) tended to ‘have a problem’ with Jews.  And not surprisingly: in a world divided between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ the Jew – the quintessential ‘Other’ – typically ends up on the wrong side of that divide.

The antisemitism in the Labour Party isn’t a ‘stand-alone’ phenomenon; it did not appear out of nothing, just because Jeremy Corbyn waved a magic wand.  It is part of something much bigger: a fundamentalist world view.  That is the root cause of the ‘culture’ that the EHRC was referring to.  One cannot ‘cure’ fundamentalism of antisemitism.  Contrary to popular belief, antisemitism is not an externality, a virus infecting an otherwise healthy organism; it is part of the very DNA of fundamentalism.  It is integral to that world view.  'Tackling’ antisemitism without dealing with the fundamentalism is like trying to cure cancer by prescribing pain killers.

‘Dealing with antisemitism’ should not be reduced to ‘dealing with complaints of antisemitism’.  That would do very little to eliminate the “culture” EHRC referred to.  And ‘dealing with the problem’ should not be reduced to ‘dealing with antisemitism’.

The problem is what I called ‘ideological fundamentalism’ – a form of political extremism.  Antisemitism is just one of the manifestations of that fundamentalism.  In fact, you’ll find that it’s been a manifestation of every type of European political extremism – for centuries.

Assuming he really wants to ‘tackle’ antisemitism, Keir Starmer will not be able to do it by tinkering with disciplinary procedures or by suspending a few individuals.  Or even by suspending “thousands and thousands”, as his Deputy threatened.

 

The Current Leader

Which brings me to Starmer himself.  Since he became leader (Leader?) his attitude and speeches in relation to antisemitism seem flawless.  He says the right things; he sacked Rebecca Long-Bailey for a sin that would, if anything, have gained her praise from the previous leadership; why, he even took the whip from Corbyn himself!

And yet, one wonders how come this decisive, ‘zero-tolerance’ Starmer sat next to Corbyn – in his Shadow Cabinet, no less – for nigh on five years, with only occasional, very mild and vague criticism?  How come he cheered him on?  How come he campaigned for people to vote for a party with a culture of antisemitism?  For Corbyn as Prime Minister?  Starmer claims that he voiced his criticism more firmly ‘inside’.  Perhaps he did – but is that enough?  How was Sir Keir’s attitude different than that of a John Rees or Bonnie Greer?

What is it that Sir Keir Starmer really believes in?  In the race to become Leader of the Party, he declared himself a hard leftist through-and-through; a man that would ‘unite’ the Party.  Now he says he wants to clean and cure it.  He even revealed – but only once Corbyn resigned – that his wife was Jewish.

Many a member of the Labour Party left in disgust – some at the cost of their career; others stayed and fought valiantly – suffering stress and abuse as a consequence.  Starmer stayed, kept his mouth shut – and benefited.  I respect and trust them; I don’t – him.

The Former Leader

But Starmer suspended Corbyn, you’ll say.  In the eyes of many a battered, worried Jew, suspending Corbyn turned Starmer into a modern-day King Ahasuerus.  But let’s get our wits about us and reason: is this what we want?  Sure, Corbyn was toxic; he was definitely part of the problem; but is he the problem?  Would a Labour Party led by – for instance – John McDonnell be better for Jews?  Will the ‘culture’ problem magically disappear if Corbyn does?

In reality, Corbyn’s suspension was counter-productive.  In a sense, it vindicated his claim, his narrative: that in the Labour Party antisemitism should be seen as a problem of a few individuals; to be solved by disciplining them and moving on.

I’m not suggesting Jews should rejoice that Corbyn has been reinstated: this once again acted as a distraction, taking the focus away from the real issue.  But, at least, his reinstatement has spared us a more dire scenario: that of his ‘due process’ under an improved, future complaints procedure.  That was a prospect that, I’m sure, the ever-contrarian Corbyn really relished.  Imagine a group of ‘independent’ non-Jewish officials looking for ‘hard evidence’ to ‘determine’ whether what Corbyn did was or was not antisemitism.  If it was up to white people to determine what is or is not anti-Black racism, we would still be using the n-word!

 

The Leadership in general

In a democracy, leaders are elected.  But how are they selected?  After all, We The People can only vote for the candidates that the parties put in front of us.

Now, if you own a business or you work in one, you know how people are recruited and how they are promoted.  You would never take someone who just finished school and appoint him or her as – say – Director of Sales.  No, not even if s/he spent a couple of years working as a barista at Costa Coffee.  You would not appoint as CEO someone that has not (at the very least!) successfully managed a department.

Why, then, would you want to have as Prime Minister someone (like Corbyn or Starmer) who never-ever served as Minister?  Sure, in his time Corbyn ‘managed’ many a political demonstration.  Starmer was a human rights barrister and Director of Public Prosecutions.  But how relevant are these skills to the role of Prime Minister?

Deputy Labour Leader Angela Rayner left school at 16 and trained as a social worker.  She became involved in the Unison trade union and gradually rose in the Party hierarchy.   Don’t get me wrong: I tip my hat to her willingness to help others; I respect her determination to make a honest living for her and her children; I value her interest in politics.  She seems like a decent person; but will that make her a decent minister?

I have nothing against political activism; but if that’s what you did in University; if that was your main occupation throughout your life, we have to ask: what do you really know about what the rest of us are doing?  If you never managed a corner shop, what makes you able to run a country?

 

The Future

Some take it as given that the Labour Party (as the political arm of the Labour Movement) will always exist.  That’s an illusion.  Voters trust pragmatic leaders, not ideological ones; people who seek solutions in the reality around them, not in the Little Red Book.  In Israel, the Labour Party has practically disappeared – mainly because it stuck to slogans, ideas and ‘ideals’ that voters saw as disconnected from reality.

If you think that this could never happen in the UK – think again.  It is not just the colossal 2019 Labour defeat.  Although seemingly not as decisive, the 2017 one was ominous: Labour fought those elections against a Conservative Party in disarray; against a fumbling government led by a well-meaning but pathologically charmless Prime Minister, who voted Remain but was put in charge of implementing Brexit…

So what should Labour do?  Well, this is ‘Politically-incorrect Politics’ – but I’m afraid I do not have any original solution.  Just some good ol' advice.

If you want to govern the country, put in place capable leaders with a good track record.  It’s about skills and experience, not just good intentions.

If you want to wave Palestinian flags – go be Prime Minister of Palestine.  We want someone who at least cares about the UK.

And then, understand that, if one wishes to govern a democracy, one has to appeal to a majority of the people.  Which – look at any statistics of political inclinations – means appealing to the moderate centre.

If you talk about ‘radical policies’, we understand that you want to experiment; to gamble with our lives and our livelihoods; and those of our children.  We’ll have none of that, thank you!  Go try your ‘radical ideas’ elsewhere.  Maybe in Palestine?  If they work there, we’ll consider them here.  See ya!

Sure, we want a better life.  A juster, more caring society.  Only we don't want no revolution.  Every revolution that's ever been ended up butchering us -- or sending us to war, to butcher each other.  Far-left 'revolutionaries' do not belong in the Labour Party any more than neo-Nazis belong in the Conservative Party.  You were stupid enough to let them in?  Now find a way to get rid of them.  If what you’re selling is Communist Party dressed up as ‘Labour’ – we’re not buying.

Yes, we heard that Marx and Trotsky were very smart people.  But look around and smell the coffee: if we wanted someone who sings from the hymn sheet, we’d elect the village priest.  No, thank you: we need pragmatic leaders, not consumers of theoretical scripture.

You know, you have a problem: while your fundamentalists keep ranting about ‘Tory scum’, the Conservative Party has moved increasingly to the centre, ‘crowding’ Labour out of its traditional positions.  We The People understand this, do you?  Just look at the current government, with its record number of ethnic minority ministers – including the senior posts of Chancellor and Home Secretary.  Just look at its reaction to the pandemic – no, not the fumbling about rules, lockdowns and tiers, but the financial benefits it dished out to employees and small business owners.  Just look at its environment-related pledges, or the worship-like praise of the NHS…

You, Labour guys, have your work cut out for you.  On one hand, you have to be (or at least appear to be) moderate; we ain’t voting for no nutters.  On the other hand, you’ve gotta find a way to differentiate yourselves from an increasingly centrist (in practice, if not in ideology) Tory Party.  ‘The Government should have done more’ is a rather feeble criticism, because it implies that what was done was good.

You wanna govern again?  Start by proving you can mount a sensible Opposition.  Because – in the UK, just like in Israel – democracy needs one.  Best of luck to you!

Boris, Shield of Israel

In recent years, Israelis have often been accused of apathy on the question of peace with the Palestinians.  But the putative annexation of/extension of jurisdiction over parts of the West Bank/Judea & Samaria has already shaken things up.  It is subject to fierce debate in Israel.  And so it should be.  True, the current government is the result of democratic elections and the Israeli electorate has been told exactly what they were voting for.  Still, there is nothing wrong with debating the matter again, so that actual intentions are fleshed out and previously unforeseen consequences flushed out.

I will abstain from taking a position here on the topic itself – other than stating that I see legitimate arguments on both sides in that discussion.  The issue is – it is a debate for Israelis to have.  In a perfect world, the Palestinians should also be involved – provided, that is, that they wish to be and that they produce representatives capable of relating to any proposal with anything other than knee-jerk, hysteric rejections.  And, finally, it is only right for Israel to involve the US; because of that country’s decades of (mostly) unwavering support for the Jewish state; because it is the #1 world power; and because it produced the peace proposal that forms the basis of the ‘annexation’.

But, however one positions oneself with respect to the plan itself, it’s hard to understand why it should be anyone else’s business.

Why does everybody (and his lame sister) feel entitled to tell Israel and Israelis what to do?  Some, of course, are motivated by the antisemitic belief that the Jewish state is a threat to the welfare (and even the existence) of the entire world.  Former British minister and Labour Party politician Clare Short, for instance, blamed the failure to decisively tackle global warming on… Israel.  Thus, she opined, the existence of the Jewish state threatened to bring about “the end of the human race”.  More recently, another British Labour MP – a certain nobody called Alex Sobel – opined on Twitter that

“The annexation is a danger to not just Palestinians and Israelis but to us all”.

But then, we all know where that’s coming from.  I guess that’s why the Labour Party is being investigated for its institutional antisemitism.

Things take a different turn when someone who isn’t a complete nobody steps in.  Bestowing on himself a title that can be translated as ‘Defender of Israel’ or ‘Shield of Israel’, on Wednesday British Prime Minister Boris Johnson penned an article – in Hebrew – in one of Israel’s major newspapers.

People may shrug off Mr. Johnson’s uninvited ‘contribution’; but imagine that, in the midst of the Brexit debate, Benjamin Netanyahu would’ve published an article in the Times of London, telling the Brits in no uncertain terms to stop behaving so foolishly.  I have a nagging suspicion that such intervention by Israel’s prime minister would’ve been seen as (to use a British understatement) ‘not entirely welcome’.  Despite the fact that both the EU and the UK are important trade partners for Israel and, as such, Netanyahu might have felt entitled to weigh in.

It is interesting to read Mr. Johnson’s article – if nothing else, it provides a window into the patronising, neo-colonial mindset of so many Western ‘friends of Israel’.

Indeed, Johnson starts by establishing his ‘credentials’; no, not as a fair-minded, justice-loving politician – but as a “supporter and admirer of Israel” – no less.  He even writes:

“I am an enthusiastic defender of Israel.  Few goals are closer to my heart than ensuring that her citizens are protected from the threat of terror and antisemitic incitement.”

You heard that, ye bloody Israelis?  You’ve got nothing to worry about – Uncle Boris will forever protect you from harm.  True, he has yet to deal with those who bullied and humiliated his own country; but worry not – in case of need he will surely deploy his valiant soldiers to defend Israeli lives and dignity.  Especially since he also wrote that

“Our commitment to Israel’s security is firm, as long as I am Britain’s Prime Minister.”

No worries, then, for the next 4 years or so.  Unless, of course, there’s a crisis that brings Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy to power.  Or even Jeremy Corbyn – who seems to still lurk somewhere in the dark recesses of British politics.

But it’s not just Uncle Boris; apparently, his entire country has a proud tradition of valiant Israel-protecting:

“Britain has always stood with Israel and her right to exist in peace and security – like all other nation.”

There are still a few people in Israel who, upon reading this, may scratch their – mostly bald – heads.  People who fought bloody battles against the Arab Legion – an army armed, trained and officered by the British; in 1948, fighting that force cost more Israeli lives than all the other fronts put together.

But we don’t have to rely on the memory of Israelis who were of fighting age in 1948; perhaps they don’t remember all that well…  As recently as August 2014, however, the British government led by Conservative leader David Cameron (another stalwart friend of Israel) suspended exports of arms to the Jewish state.  Apparently, Her Majesty’s Government was terribly worried that those weapons might be used against the Palestinians in Gaza.  I don’t understand what gave them that idea! after all, between January and August 2014, Gaza had bombed Israel with only marginally more than 4,000 missiles…

But it’s not all about weaponry.  Apparently, Mr. Johnson’s country also supplied Israel with political and diplomatic ‘protection’:

“Britain often defended Israel, as part of a small minority at the UN, from unjustified and disproportionate criticism.”

That’s sooo important, especially since the UK has a veto at the UN Security Council.  So let’s have a look at some of UN’s more notable resolutions:

-        UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947) proposed the establishment of a Jewish state on part of the Mandate of Palestine.  33 countries voted in favour, 13 against and 10 (including the UK) abstained.  Abstained – in terms of the vote, that is.  The UK did not abstain from a very sustained campaign aimed at sabotaging the implementation of that resolution; a campaign that came very close to succeeding.

-        UN General Assembly Resolution 273 (1949) admitted Israel as a member of the United Nations.  This time 37 states voted in favour and 12 against; 9 abstained, including the UK.

-        On 4 July 1967, the UK voted in favour of General Assembly Resolution 2253 (proposed by Pakistan), which declared ‘invalid’ all “measures taken by Israel to change the status” of Jerusalem.  The “measures”, by the way, were also referred in the accompanying speeches as the ‘annexation’ of Jerusalem.  Plus ça change…

But hey, this is old stuff, ‘innit?  Let’s come a bit closer to our times.  In 2000, having rejected Ehud Barak’s opening peace proposal and even the ‘Parameters’ proposed by Bill Clinton, the Palestinian Authority/PLO prepared a ‘popular uprising’ (read: a series of terror attacks that cost the lives of more than 1000 Israelis – three quarters of them uninvolved civilians).  The UN Security Council ‘responded’ with Resolution 1322/7 October 2000, which condemned

“acts of violence, especially the excessive use of force against Palestinians…”

UK voted in favour of this resolution.  I wonder if Boris Johnson had this in mind when talking about his determination to ensure that “Israel’s citizens are protected from the threat of terror”?  I’m not sure – his memory and attention to ‘detail’ are notoriously feeble…

Indeed, one can hardly find a UN resolution condemning Israel (including those accusing the Jewish state of outlandish ‘violations of international humanitarian law’ and of horrible ‘war crimes’) that the United Kingdom opposed.

But if those pesky Israelis think they only owe Britain their security, they’re wrong.  In fact, writes Mr. Johnson, Britain is responsible for the establishment of the State of Israel, via the Balfour Declaration.

Now, I’m surprised Boris was so modest here.  Because the British Government did much more than issue a declaration; in fact, they solemnly committed, in front of the ‘international community’ of the day, to do everything in their power to establish in the Mandate of Palestine ‘the Jewish national home’.  The only problem – and this is obviously just a small detail – is that, having secured the Mandate in return for that pledge, they almost immediately lost any intention to ever fulfil it.

Anyway: after listing all the reasons why Israelis should be grateful to himself personally and to his country, Boris Johnson informed them that

“The annexation would constitute an infringement of international law.”

That’s interesting because, almost at the same time, Her Majesty’s Government also accused China of infringing international law, by imposing on Hong Kong an undemocratic, draconic law – a ‘law’ that makes all protest… unlawful.  The United Kingdom (which left Hong Kong at the mercy of the Chinese with nothing but ‘international law’ to defend them) reacted very strongly by… offering 3 million Hong Kongers UK residence rights and a route to citizenship.  That’ll no doubt teach the Chinese never again to mess with international law; so I’m thinking: perhaps Boris wishes to also punish Israel by offering UK residence to 3 million Palestinians?  I’m pretty sure that such offer would cause a pretty long queue in front of the British Consulate in Jerusalem…

But what I like about Boris Johnson is his optimism, his ‘can do’ attitude.  Read, for instance, this charming mixture of empty words and hot air:

“There is another way.  Like many Israelis, I too am frustrated that the peace discussions ended in failure.  While I understand the frustration felt by both sides, we must leverage this moment of energy to return once more to the negotiations table and strive towards finding a solution.  It will require compromise from all sides.”

Now, that’s indeed “another way”!  Mr. Johnson’s “solution” is simple (in fact, I’d call it ‘simple-minded’): if we bashed our heads into a brick wall for 25 years and failed to break through – we “must” try for another 25.  And I thought that that brilliant approach ended with Theresa May and the many Parliament votes on the ‘only possible deal’!

*** 

Everybody seems to know better than the Israelis what the Israelis should (and especially shouldn’t) do.

But whether we are in favour or opposed to the ‘annexation’, we Israelis must respond to Mr. Johnson’s well-intentioned and not-at-all self-serving intervention with utmost British courtesy:

We are all very busy right now.  But your call is very important to us.  Please stay on the line and we will answer as soon as we can.  Thank you!

'Anti-Zionism’ is about the Joos, stupid!

Raised and educated in the UK, Prof. Ian Almond teaches World Literature at Georgetown University in Qatar.  So, when I heard that he took to the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera to write about antisemitism, I was hopeful. I thought he was going to write about the high incidence of antisemitism (including Holocaust-denial) in the Arab world.  But no: Prof. Almond chose to warn us all of ‘The danger of conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism’.

Still, I remained hopeful while reading the first few sentences.  Says Prof. Almond:

"I still remember the shock I felt when, at the age of 12, my teacher told me the word ‘joo’ I had just spoken, which I had thought to mean to lie or cheat, was actually ‘Jew’ and was anti-Semitic.  Throughout my British childhood, I had used that word casually and frequently, without ever knowing what it really meant."

Almond goes on to analyse the reasons for his childish mistake:

"I start with this example to make a simple point: anti-Semitism is so entrenched in our society, so depressingly persistent, that to trivialise it is to trivialise the blueprint of prejudice itself. It is a barometer of moral cowardice: when someone doesn’t want to take responsibility for their own faults or problems, they blame the Jews."

Prof. Almond is right to use the present tense in the sentence above: this is not ‘historic’, but contemporaneous antisemitism; the future Professor was 12 at the time (Jeremy Corbyn, by the way,  was 32), so that’s a mere 37 years ago.  We may wish to believe that one man’s character – say Brett Kavanaugh’s! – can change in that stretch of time; but deeply entrenched prejudice does not just disappear from an entire society in less than a generation.

Of course, things did change since the 1980s.  We are much more ‘politically-correct’ these days.  School children are less likely to refer to cheating as ‘jewing someone’; if they do, they will be told that they should not use the word in that sense.  But it’s not about a childish word – it’s about the societal prejudice it reveals.  The word may rarely be used with that meaning these days; but the prejudice is still there.  If you want proof, just surf Twitter.  Or listen to the many Labour Party supporters who seem to say that, when African Caribbeans, Muslims or Asians complain about racism, they have a point; but when Jews complain about antisemitism, there must be some dishonest motive behind it.

Prof. Almond’s childhood story is revealing – and his subsequent analysis is correct.  Too bad they are employed to excuse, rather than inform, the rest of his 'learned article'.

After declaring that “anti-Semitism is so entrenched in our society, so depressingly persistent, that to trivialise it is to trivialise the blueprint of prejudice itself”, Prof. Almond proceeds to do exactly that – trivialise it:

"There are definitely some voices who claim to support the Labour Party, and who allow their anti-Zionism to spill over mindlessly into anti-Semitism."

“There are […] some voices who claim…”???  Professor, don’t “some voices” include the very Leader of the Party, who rose to the defence of blood-libellers, conspiracy theorists and ‘artists’ who depict hooked-nosed ‘oppressors’?  Don’t “some voices” include ’illustrious’ members of the Party top brass (and good friends of the Leader), who implied that Jews conspired with their own genocidal persecutors?  Don’t they include a well-attended recent meeting at the Party Conference, where people chanted ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free’ – a call to pogrom on 6.5 million Israeli Jews?  Are these really“some voices who claim to support the Labour Party”???

But that’s not the only place where Prof. Almond’s argument lacks internal logic – not to mention moral clarity.  We are all, in fact, lucky that the good Professor teaches literature, rather than medical science; because – bluntly put – his diagnosis suffers from terminal idiocy, in view of the symptoms that he himself described in the previous paragraphs.

Indeed, Prof. Almond’s judgement of “some voices” is that “their anti-Zionism […] spill[s] over mindlessly into anti-Semitism”.  So anti-Zionism comes first and “some voices” are guilty only of taking it a bit too far.  But, since (as he himself explained) “anti-Semitism is so entrenched in our society, so depressingly persistent”, isn’t it much more likely that anti-Zionism is the outcome of that deeply entrenched prejudice?  Indeed, that it is just a new symptom of that entrenched disease?  If – God forbid – I suffered from “entrenched” and “depressingly persistent” lung cancer and developed a nasty cough – chances are it’s because of the cancer, not because I sang too loudly in church!

What ‘Costa’ means, of course, is 'the Zionists jew the Palestinians’.

Isn’t that “entrenched [… and] depressingly persistent” antisemitism a much more likely explanation for the visceral animus, unique in its nature and intensity, that “some voices” exhibit towards the Jewish state – and only towards the Jewish state?  Isn’t this why the oppression of Palestinians was so often and emotionally cited at the Labour Conference, while none of the ‘progressive’ leaders cared to mention the plight of Saudi women – those 51% of the country’s population that had to wait until 2018 (2018!) to be allowed to drive (by law, though still not in practice)?

Prof. Almond views as outrageous that

"The IHRA code considers any description of the Israeli State as a ‘racist’ institution to be anti-Semitic."

But – leaving aside the fact that his interpretation of “The IHRA code” is tendentious – which other state is called “a ‘racist’ institution”?  The Labour Party claims that Hungary’s current government is antisemitic and Islamophobic – yet it does not call Hungary “a ‘racist’ institution”.  Jeremy Corbyn politely frowned at Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya; yet he did not call the former British colony of Burma ‘a racist endeavour’ as a result.

But Prof. Almond appears convinced that Israel should be called a racist institution.  He explains why:

"[I]n 1948, three-quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs were forcibly evicted, with British backing, off their own land. To recognise this as racist, in the words of the IHRA code, would be ‘anti-semitic’."

That the “Palestinian Arabs were forcibly evicted, with British backing” would be shocking news to the 1948 British Mandate officials, as well as to the Jewish inhabitants of Kibbutz Ein Hamifratz, bombed by British artillery, apparently in order to ‘assist’ the Arab town of Acre.  But that’s by-the-by.

However, you know what?  Let’s be generous with Prof. Almond: let’s adopt his version of history – however specious.  Let’s assume that indeed the “Palestinian Arabs were forcibly evicted” – though the reality was considerably more complex than that; let’s ignore that that ‘eviction’ occurred in the midst of a civil war that soon morphed into a war of survival against attack by all neighbouring states; let’s even forget that the Arab side perpetrated their own ‘evictions’ – in fact more thorough ‘evictions,’ since no living Jew remained in the territory they even temporarily controlled.

But what I fail to understand, even after all those assumptions, is why and how is that ‘Jewish misbehaviour’ more terrible than dozens of other cases of ‘forced eviction’ that occurred elsewhere, both before and after the establishment of the State of Israel.  ‘Evictions’ that are very rarely – if ever – described as ‘racist’.

Immediately after the defeat of Nazi Germany, borders were re-drawn – and accounts settled.  The ethnic German population of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary (people that had lived there for centuries) was driven out.  So was the population of territories that had been part of Germany, but were now ‘given’ to the USSR and Poland.  In total, 14 million ethnic Germans were driven out of their homes and lands, with the agreement and connivance of the victorious powers.  Circa 1 million died in the process: some at the hands of local soldiers, policemen and civilian vigilantes; others, due to exposure and exhaustion; many died of starvation either before or after reaching war-ravaged Germany (or, rather, territories of the former German Reich, now occupied and governed by the Allies).  The 13 million survivors – and their descendants, accounting these days for almost a quarter of Germany’s population – were never allowed to return and were never granted any compensation.

Ethnic German refugees fleeing westwards 

Ethnic Germans were not the only population ‘evicted’ at the time: so were ethnic Poles living in Ukraine – many of whom were Soviet citizens.  Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Ukrainians and Lemkos were forcibly expelled from Poland into the Soviet Union; and when the latter closed its border, the remaining Ukrainian and Lemkos villagers were forced to ‘resettle’ in the west of the country, in the former German provinces ‘transferred’ to Poland.  Conditions were harsh and human life was cheap – so many died or were killed on the way; molested women and girls had nobody to complain to: they typically picked up the small children or younger siblings and continued their journey – that is, whenever they and their families escaped being murdered out of sheer sadism and gratuitous brutality.  Those Ukrainians and Lemkos who survived this ‘resettlement’ ordeal were forcibly dispersed, with no regard to family and community ties; the Polish authorities forbade any expression of native language and culture, in a deliberate attempt to assimilate them into the prevalent Polish ethnicity.  (To those wishing to learn more of the terrible history of Europe in the immediate aftermath of World War II, I recommend Keith Lowe’s excellent book ‘Savage Continent’.)

All of the above (and much, much more) happened in what was by then peacetime.  The allied armies ruled in Berlin and over a subdued Europe.  Those 'evicted' did not pose any security risk to the remaining population.  In Czechoslovakia and Hungary, they did not even endanger the demographic supremacy of the majority population.  It can be argued, on the other hand, that this was the making of the new Poland: historically, Poland had been a geographic and demographic patchwork whose existence as an independent nation between the German and Russian ‘spheres of influence’ had been intermittent; the post-war bout of ruthless viciousness gave birth to a completely different country — a Poland with utterly changed borders and a demographic eerily uniform from an ethnic perspective.

The making of modern Poland: new borders and homogeneous ethnicity

Europe isn’t the only ‘savage continent’.  In 1947, even while the newly-formed United Nations was debating the fate of the Mandate of Palestine, an additional former 'British' territory was being partitioned: the former Jewel of the Crown – the British Raj.  Like most colonies, this was not a country – but an artificial contraption made up of numerous faiths and ethnicities, held together (but often also set against each other) by colonial interests.  There was, however, one major fault line, between the Hindu population and the Muslim one.  Both groaned under the British colonial yoke, but also resented and feared each other.  To ‘pacify’ the place long enough to wash its hands of it, the British government implemented a territorial partition into two states.  It was hardly a fair deal: the Hindu-majority state – India – incorporated the vast majority of industrial assets and agricultural land; it also ‘inherited’ most of the former colony’s financial reserves.  The Muslim-majority state – Pakistan – initially comprised just one fifth of the former colony (the Muslim population accounted in 1947 for circa 30%).  Even that consisted of two non-contiguous pieces of territory – West Pakistan and East Pakistan (later to become Bangladesh) – separated by 1,000 miles of Indian territory.

Nations may draw borders, but borders don’t create nations.  Despite the partition, inter-communal violence continued and intensified.  When all is said and done, circa 1 million people are estimated to have lost their life.  15 million were forced to leave their ancestral homes and lands and go into exile – never to return.

A convoy of refugees fleeing West Pakistan in 1947. 

Not even that was enough to defuse the tensions: India and Pakistan have since fought several wars and continue to face each other with relentless suspicion and barely contained hostility.  Since both are armed to the teeth – including nuclear arsenals – this remains a potential source of catastrophic conflagration.

Pakistan officially calls itself an Islamic Republic (Article 1 of the Constitution) – and is recognised under that name by the United Kingdom.  Article 2 proclaims:

"Islam shall be the State religion of Pakistan."

Yet I have yet to hear protests from Prof. Almond or from other Corbynites.  Why aren’t they worried about the impact of such constitutional arrangements upon the status of Pakistan’s non-Muslim minorities (Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, etc.)?  And by the way, the official languages of Pakistan are Urdu and English, despite the fact that Punjabi is the native tongue for more than 40% of the population.

As for India, the Muslim minority in the predominantly Hindu country has long complained of discrimination – and independent reports tend to support those claims.  If anything, complaints of oppression and marginalisation have intensified under Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

I would assume that Prof. Almond is familiar with the birth of India and Pakistan – after all he claims Post-Colonial Studies as one of his specialisms.  Unless the good Professor is one of those ‘progressives’ for whom the study of post-colonialism always boils down to one small country in the Middle East…

Despite Prof. Almond’s protestations, the Labour Party did adopt the IHRA Definition – after numerous subterfuges and under huge public pressure.  But Jeremy Corbyn attempted to ‘supplement it’ (read: subvert it) with a proviso ‘protecting’ those who regard

"the circumstances around [Israel’s] foundation as racist."

But why?  How were those “circumstances” different from those that led to the formation of Pakistan?  Or of India?  Or of modern-day Poland?  Or of Croatia – the latest addition to the European Union – the “circumstances”of whose “foundation” included the ethnic cleansing of circa 400,000 Serbs?  Why is it that Corbyn and his supporters never call those countries ‘racist endeavours’?

The list of unpleasant “circumstances”, of course, is not limited to the countries mentioned above.  In fact, such “circumstances” are the rule, rather than the exception: more often than not, countries are born in conflict and strife; frequently, that strife includes numerous deaths, injuries, displacement and suffering of innocents.  That is (to use a British understatement) very unfortunate; but unusual it ain’t.  What's unusual – unique actually! – is the attempt to deny a country its legitimacy in the present and its existence in the future, because of “circumstances” in its past.  What's uncommon – extraordinary actually! – is calling an entire country ‘a racist institution’.  Hey, what an astonishing coincidence: the state subjected to this type of unique and extraordinary assault just ‘happens’ to be the Jewish state!  Surprising, 'innit?? (Note the attempt at English irony!)

No, Prof. Almond: I am not worried about “conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism”: they are one and the same.  You must have learned the wrong lesson from your childhood experience: singling Jews out for 'special attention' is just as wrong, even when you use politically-correct words.  Dear Professor of World Literature, antisemitism is not a matter of vocabulary; it’s not the words you utter – it’s the prejudice you harbour.  You see, the “IHRA code” is more than just a definition.  It’s a test – and you failed.