Jeremy Corbyn is currently enduring yet another well-organised smear campaign based on his alleged support for “anti-Semitism”. Although the allegation is too ridiculous for words, the smear campaign is nevertheless enjoying some success for two main reasons, each of which is pretty serious – yet neither one has any rational foundation that’s capable of withstanding even basic critical examination.
- What’s in a word?
The first, and arguably most relevant reason, is the widespread misunderstanding of the expression “anti-Semitism”. Consider the most significant part of the expression – Semitism. This obviously derives from the word “Semite”. The 1993 edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defined “Semite” as follows:
A member of any of the peoples supposedly descended from Shem, son of Noah (Gen 10:21-31) including esp. the Jews, Arabs, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Phoenicians.
So just twenty five years ago the expression anti-Semitism could have referred to the showing of prejudice against tens of millions of people stretching from North Africa to Iraq. Then something quite peculiar happened. According to Stephen Sedley, writing for the London Review of Books:
In May 2016 the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental body, adopted a ‘non-legally-binding working definition of anti-Semitism’: ‘Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed towards Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, towards Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
This definition, which has apparently being officially adopted by both the British government and Britain’s Labour Party, simply airbrushes out all of the other people originally included in the earlier rational definition of the word – and notably Arabs. It would appear that the new wording originated at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which also provides numerous examples how to interpret the definition. One such example reads:
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour.
Now it isn’t very difficult to spot the lack of intellectual quality in this. The concept of a country owned and controlled by the Jewish people, and only the Jewish people, is the basis of Zionism. Many people have become so conditioned to fear Zionist propaganda that they become blinded to the many obvious flaws in the rationale of the Zionists. They appear to think that questioning Zionism is tantamount to supporting holocaust denial, when the two things are obviously completely different. No matter the obvious contradictions between the fundamental concept of Zionism, and a concept of basic human rights where no one group is exceptional, and which most civilised countries try to live up to.
But the example provided by the IHRA goes to the heart of the current problem: we have travelled from a definition of anti-Semitism that originally included hundreds of millions of people originating in North Africa and the Middle East, of which the Jewish people were not exceptional, to one which totally excludes everyone who is not Jewish, and demands acceptance of a notion that Israel is not a racist endeavour – despite seventy years of history, and counting, that provides voluminous evidence to the contrary. Zionism is clearly a racist endeavour, and seventy years, and counting, of Palestinian suffering is undeniable, ongoing, blood-soaked proof of that fact.
Given that Jeremy Corbyn has spent much of his political life as a dedicated supporter of the rights of the Palestinian people – a Semitic people – it’s really quite ridiculous to suggest he supports anti-Semitism.
It would seem that much of the smear campaign that’s being carried out at the moment is a carefully orchestrated attack on someone who has long championed the terrible injustices perpetrated against Palestinians for the last seventy years, and counting. A key part of this smear campaign is the gradual corruption of the expression “anti-Semitism”, from its original interpretation to one where it’s now supposed to include anyone who questions the concept of Zionism – a very different meaning altogether.
Whilst it’s very easy to accuse non-Jews, such as Jeremy Corbyn, say, or Ken Livingstone, of anti-Semitism because of their support for Palestinians and opposition to Zionism, it’s a lot more difficult when Jewish people themselves say basically the same thing, as frequently happens.
Hasidim, the ultra-orthodox Jewish group, has long opposed the state of Israel, and Zionism, the ideological principle behind it. In a recent article by the BBC, a photograph shows a large demonstration by Hasidic Jews, many of whom are holding up placards which read “Judaism rejects Zionism, and the state of Israel”. This is not as strange as it may seem: Judaism has been around for about five thousand years, Zionism for a mere hundred and twenty years or so, but accusing Hasidim of anti-Semitism, which is implied by the IHRA’s words, would be beyond satire.
Nor is Zionism opposed only by ultra-orthodox Jews. The London-based Jewish Socialists’ Group, for example, wrote the following:
Antisemitism and anti-Zionism are not the same. Zionism is a political ideology which has always been contested within Jewish life since it emerged in 1897, and it is entirely legitimate for non-Jews as well as Jews to express opinions about it, whether positive or negative. Not all Jews are Zionists. Not all Zionists are Jews. [My emphasis]
Criticism of Israeli government policy and Israeli state actions against the Palestinians is not antisemitism. Those who conflate criticism of Israeli policy with antisemitism, whether they are supporters or opponents of Israeli policy, are actually helping the antisemites. We reject any attempt, from whichever quarter, to place legitimate criticism of Israeli policy out of bounds.
Opposition to, or prejudice and discrimination against people just because they’re Jewish is totally inexcusable. Opposition to Zionism, however, is not only a completely different thing, it’s absolutely right. Zionism is the modern equivalent of apartheid (both of which, curiously, started flexing their muscles at about the same time). It practices exceptionalism, proclaiming one group of people superior to all others, justifying a vile and ruthless discrimination which, in the case of the Zionists, has murdered tens of thousands of defenceless people and cruelly oppressed millions of others. Therefore it’s fairly clear to see that anyone who does not strongly and actively oppose Zionism must obviously be supporting instead a regime whose institutionalised heartless cruelty has no other equivalent in the modern world.
- On a wing and a prayer
The second reason for the relative success of the smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn which, when critically examined, quickly crumbles to dust is the very ideological premise for Zionism: that Jewish people have some sort of exceptional claim to the land around Jerusalem – because their god said so.
The hard unchallengeable facts about this claim are:
- The Old Testament, which contains the scriptures which supposedly validate the Zionist claim, was written by human beings – mostly Jewish human beings – not god.
- There is no verifiable empirical evidence that god exists.
At least two thirds of the human population are brainwashed into believing some kind of religion, and the existence of some sort of supernatural being, or beings, whose wisdom in all things is both beyond question and reproach. Coupled to this, and an integral part of the brainwashing, is the “carrot and stick principle”: if we wholeheartedly accept the religion we will live happily ever after in some sort of “heaven”; if we do not accept it we will live forever in some sort of “hell”. So even though many people do not regularly practice the religions in which they’re indoctrinated, the conditioning is still there inside them, which is why they invariably observe religious services for the events that matter to them: births, deaths and marriages.
So religion is a powerful controlling device for most people – no matter that the core principle of most religions – belief in some sort of supernatural being – cannot be proven. Therefore when Zionists say there are biblical scriptures to verify their claim to land around Jerusalem, scriptures purporting to be the very word of god, many people balk at the prospect of disputing the claim, vaguely recalling distant thoughts of eternal hellfire.
But the existence of this god cannot be proven, and the quoted scriptures were written by ordinary human beings with vested interests in the claims they made.
Some would no doubt argue that even though the religious basis of Zionism is flimsy, to say the least, that people are still entitled to believe whatever they want to believe, and that real libertarians should respect that. True, up to a point. People should indeed believe whatever they like, but there’s a very important caveat: that the practice of that belief should not be at the cost of the rights of others to practice their beliefs too; and the practice of that belief should very definitely not cause harm to others. When some new cult emerges claiming the necessity for human sacrifices, as happens from time to time, we don’t meekly nod in agreement and say, well, that’s O.K. if that’s what your religion says, we quite rightly throw the murderers into prison for substantial periods of time. But that’s not what’s happened with the Zionist cult. The Zionists have used their religion to not only justify stealing vast lands away from Palestinians who owned it for centuries, but also to justify the murdering of tens of thousands of Palestinians too, and ruining the lives of millions of others.
Therefore it’s very easy to see that the ideological claim of the Zionists has no substance.
It’s a shame the Labour Party hasn’t got the courage to strongly support its leader against the latest smear campaign. The spectacle of MPs from Jeremy Corbyn’s own party attacking him in support of the smearing against him is sickening beyond belief. Labour should stand up for justice for Palestine, not crumple up like a wet paper bag. Discrimination against Jewish people is utterly reprehensible and inexcusable, but Zionism is the modern equivalent of apartheid. As the Jewish Socialists say, “Antisemitism and anti-Zionism are not the same. Zionism is a political ideology“. Fighting it is totally justifiable, and right. Labour MPs who support the Zionists, against their own leader, are obviously also supporting one of the greatest human rights violations of modern times. There are no words adequate to the job of properly describing these people.