Particularly in UK politics the issue of antisemitism has become something of a cliché, and the recent sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey from the shadow cabinet has thrust it back into full view.
Now to contextualise this for any none UK readers, Rebecca Long-Bailey was the opponent of Keir Starmer, the now Labour leader, and unsurprisingly gained a position in his shadow cabinet upon his election to party leader. To many socialists within the party Starmer has been seen as being cut from the same neoliberal cloth as Tony Blair, and represents a Labour Party shift away from the Corbyn era and back towards the centre ground, arguably in an attempt to be more “electable”, but yet another London-centric white man as leader probably isn’t the image that “the party of the working class” should be pushing, but that’s just one man’s opinion, and this piece isn’t meant to be about Starmer or his politics. On Thursday 25 of June Rebecca Long-Bailey shared an interview from the independent with national treasure, and staunch Labour Party member Maxine Peak along with the caption Maxine Peak is an Absolute Diamond, the article itself discusses her most recent film, politics, race, and art, subjects that Peak has broached on many occasions however the controversial element was that Peak voiced claims that ‘The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.’ It’s said in the article that a spokesperson for the Israeli secret services negates this theory, and it’s difficult to pin down whether this is a truthful statement, or a dangerous conspiracy theory.
On the surface the sharing of this theory, true or not, could be seen as simply acknowledging the increasing militarisation of police forces, and to be fair that is a reality, particularly in both Israel and the Unites States, but given the media shit-storm perpetuated by the tabloids in the UK concerning antisemitism within the Labour Party over the last few years the focus is drastically shifted. This isn’t to say that there aren’t legitimate concerns of anti-Semitic attitudes on the left, because there really really are, my issue lies in the constant conflation between Israel and the Jewish people.
To put far too much of a simplification on it resentment towards Israel focuses on the occupation of Palestinian land, and the genocide of the last 70 odd years of the Palestinian people by the state of Israel, an issue regularly surmised on the left as Israel and Jew being seemingly synonymous. Do we consider our Britishness only in the context of the empire of the Victorian Era? Or do we consider US citizens identities solely on their government’s horrific treatment of indigenous Americans? Or Australian or New Zealand identities as their colonial decimation of aboriginal and Maori peoples? When aspects more recent are considered, within the timeframe of the existence of the state of Israel, such as the US governments nuclear testing on the indigenous peoples of the Marshall Islands, European and US intervention in the Middle East, the French occupation in Algeria, Russian occupation in the Ukraine, the entire fucking colonial history that went on well into the middle of the 20th century! Why is it so commonplace for bands to boycott concerts in Israel, or for those on the left to boycott Israeli produced products impacting the lives of Israeli citizens, but it’s almost unheard of to boycott US products or Australian ones, why do we equate the actions of the state of Israel with the Israeli people? Sartre states that ‘the anti-Semite enjoys by virtue of his principles with individual merit’, it is this sense of the self-congratulatory, the sense of moral superiority that the left must address to overcome its antisemitic pitfalls, the issue is plainly that the difference between the examples given, and the state of Israel is race.
With this notion now contextualised it’s worth considering that the call on the right that any critique of Israel is inherently antisemitic is equally as problematic, in as much as it equates the same basic theory Israel=Jew, why is it that on both the left and the right there is no real consideration for the individual identities of citizens of Israel as human beings beyond their borders, and beyond their race? I am British, English, but I am not tarred with the same brush as our bumbling, cheating, private school government am I?
There is a serious issue with antisemitism in our culture and it is far deeper rooted than anyone wants to consider. Do I think Keir Starmer was right in sacking Rebecca Long-Bailey? I honestly don’t know, there’s no denying that to a wider populace it can show him to be firm, and to the point, something we are evidently lacking in a leader of state, given that we have an overgrown toddler incapable of holding his own advisor to account for breaking rules they themselves put in place. But there’s also no denying that at the very least it looks like an opportunity seized upon to cull the left of the Labour Party further by chastising his nearest rival, and the appointment of Kate Green, who lead the campaign to oust Corbyn in favour of Owen Smith back in 2016 really cements this.
Naturally there will be those on both sides of the political spectrum who decry “it’s Israel I have a problem with not it’s people” but my entire point, is that from both standpoints IT IS antisemitic, because our culture is antisemitic. We widely acknowledge that colonialism has ingrained racism into our culture, something I hope we are beginning to address with the BLM movements further gaining of recent traction, we must also address our cultural issue of antisemitism.
Bibliography
-1 Pollard, A (2020) Maxine Peake: ‘People who couldn’t vote Labour because of Corbyn? They voted Tory as far as I’m concerned’ The Independent
-2 Sartre, J (1948) Anti-Semite and Jew pg27, Shocken Books, New York
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Harrying of the North 