Britain

LONDON — (Analysis) There is no doubt that Jews have suffered severe oppression in the course of European history. From the pogroms throughout Europe to the extermination of the Nazi Holocaust, few groups have suffered as harshly, as repeatedly, and for as long as Jewish communities. (Note the word “few” so as not to diminish the horrendous genocide of Native Americans and slavery and oppression of African Americans, as well as the suffering of others.)

The British Labour Party’s decision to adopt the IHRA’s contested anti-Semitism definition is a victory for the Israel lobby and for forces on both sides of the Atlantic seeking to stifle criticism of Mideast policy, argues Daniel Lazare. Daniel Lazare…Read more →

Panic drives the smear attack against Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn whose background as a radical socialist, not his criticism of Israel and support for the Palestine, threatens the British establishment’s hold on power, argues Alexander Mercouris. By Alexander Mercouris…Read more →

Signs of opposition to policies of Saudi King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and potentially increased domestic polarization have in the past week spilled on to the streets of London while a just-released report questioned the economic and political benefits of Britain’s relationship with the kingdom.

Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of Consortium News, on Saturday helped moderate a daylong chain of interviews in defense of WikiLeaks and its publisher Julian Assange, including a discussion with Daniel Ellsberg.  A #Unity4J online vigil was held on Saturday to defend the WikiLeaks…Read more →

Nazareth, Israel: Has Israel been covertly fueling claims of an “anti-Semitism crisis” purportedly plaguing Britain’s Labour Party since it elected a new leader, Jeremy Corbyn, three years ago?
That question is raised by a new freedom of information request submitted this week by a group of Israeli lawyers, academics and human rights activists.

The latest “scandal” gripping Britain – or to be more accurate, British elites – is over the use of the term “Zionist” by the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the head of the opposition and possibly the country’s next prime minister.
Yet again, Corbyn has found himself ensnared in what a small group of Jewish leadership organisations, which claim improbably to represent Britain’s “Jewish community”, and a small group of corporate journalists, who improbably claim to represent British public opinion, like to call Labour’s “anti-semitism problem”.

The headline in the UK newspaper the Daily Mail on August 7 encapsulated much that is paranoid in sad modern Britain. It read “Russian warships pass through English Channel as Putin’s armed forces ratchet up pressure on the Royal Navy.”

Besieged for four years with charges of anti-semitism, Jeremy Corbyn’s allies in the Labour leadership have largely lost the stomach for battle, one that was never about substance or policy but about character assassination, says Jonathan Cook. By Jonathan Cook…Read more →

The Israelis’ war on the leader of the Labour Party is really a war on free speech that’s meant to silence critics of Israel in the U.K. and elsewhere, argues As’ad AbuKhalil. By As’ad AbuKhalil Special to Consortium News In…Read more →