Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), the main organisation for left-wing Jewish Labour members, has responded to the call by right-leaning groups for a rally outside Parliament this evening against Jeremy Corbyn – by calling their own, emergency rally to show that Labour Jews support Corbyn and condemn the weekend’s attacks on him as politically motivated:
In a strongly-worded statement, JVL attributes the current furore to ‘party politics’, points out the prevalence of antisemitic views on the right of politics and condemns the behaviour of the Board of Deputies as unrepresentative of the views of most of Labour’s Jewish members:
We are Jews in the Labour Party currently actively campaigning for Labour in local elections. We are appalled by the actions and statements of the Board of Deputies. They do not represent us or the great majority of Jews in the Party who share Jeremy Corbyn’s vision for social justice and fairness. Jeremy’s consistent commitment to anti-racism is all the more needed now.
As the British people call time on May and the Tories, they are getting more desperate. There is massively more antisemitism on the right of politics than on the left. Any organisation claiming to represent Jews in the Labour Party should be holding up for criticism, the senior ex adviser to the Prime Minister who recently used a national newspaper to dredge up antisemitic conspiracy theories, and the local Conservative party which issued a dogwhistle leaflet aiming to mobilise racism in their local election campaign. The Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council have been silent on both. They have nothing to say either on the global rise of the far right and the toxic anti-immigrant rhetoric of the tabloid press. Jewish history surely gives us an imperative to speak out against both racism and fascism.
The BoD and the JLC and those supporting them must be aware that this is an attempt to influence local elections and has nothing to do with the real and necessary task of challenging racism and antisemitism at all levels of political life. We call on them to stop playing party politics and start representing what our community needs. We believe that is best represented by the politics we fight for and hope to see win on May 3rd.
The rally takes place this evening at 5pm outside Portcullis House, opposite the Houses of Parliament. Will the mainstream media feature this event with the prominence it is expected to give to the anti-Corbyn rally.
Supporters of Jeremy Corbyn of all faiths and none are encouraged to attend.
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Thanks so much, JVL!
Excellent statement from the JVL, let’s get it out there to show the duplicity of those whose only goal is to destroy Jeremy Corbyn.
Cannot be with you in person, but support your stance. Not expecting to see JVL on TV news tonight.
You won’t be seeing this on the BBC either:
Why is there nothing about this rally today on Momentum social media feeds? Why no emails mobilising its members?
The Israel lobby, Labour right are mobilising their supporters forcall tgey are worth for their anti-Corbyn rally tonight and Momentum is silent.
Unbelievable.
Wish I could be there. I will be in spirit!
Hava nagila, hava nagila………..
I’ve emailed the ‘bbc-owned’ roger phillips on bbc radio merseyside about this; given the overt agenda he & the producers have shown today.
I don’t hold much hope of it getting read out…
Well, at least he read out the JVL statement…As if THEY in the bbc had done the legwork themselves.
Bollocks! They only read it out – without any acknowledgement of me putting them onto it – because the rest of my email contained details (ie a few home truths they don’t want joe public aware of) of phillips’ & the producers’ anti-Corbyn agenda.
The selective cowards.
I’ll be with them in spirit. The right wingers want expelling from the party
Important tweet thread by Crystal moth @Prolapsarian
Thread on anti-Semitism and the Labour Party: As a Jew it is clear to me that people like @wesstreeting are a far greater danger to me than people like @jeremycorbyn. Streeting and his ilk have consistently argued that criticism of Israel and Israeli policy are inherently
anti-Semitic. This is for the most part made possible from the comfortable position of a gentile. Actually, as a Jew I don’t want to be associated with Israel’s racist and colonial politics. And the idea that I have something to do with them because I am Jewish is itself racist.
It does put me in danger for people to think I am responsible for the atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank because I am Jewish. It does put me in danger that I am not supposed to be allowed to have an opinion on the history of the Israeli state.
But far worse than this is that for people like @wesstreeting the sole point of being “anti-racist” seems to be to bash your enemies rather than to actually stop racism. I’m far happier being around people who might occasionally fuck up and take some responsibility for it than
people who are convinced they are in the right but never actually do anything to stop racist views beyond designating people racists and absolutely condemning them. This isn’t to say that racism or anti-Semitism is ok. But it is to say that anti-racism should aim a rooting out
prejudice and hatred which may be conscious or unconscious, and must start from a critical rather than dogmatic point of view. Racism isn’t ended by abolishing racists but by abolishing the conditions in which racism can flourish.
And if people like @wesstreeting, the gentile who deigns to speak on my behalf, were really serious about anti-racism he would spend more time condemning those conditions – and in particular right-wing nationalism and religious fundamentalism – that has been central to Israeli
government policy for decades. But of course it’s not really about that. Streeting believes that all left-wing critique is as stupid and reified as his own position on “racists” – that just as he attacks racism by attacking racists so must those to the left of him only attack
the brutality of capitalism by fantasising a Jewish imago of “the capitalist”. Here all left wing criticism is reduced to conspiracy theory. But of course that’s not the case in reality. In fact the whole thing cloaks the fact that people like Streeting are less interested in
actually ending oppression than they are in preserving the way things are. And all the better for them if they can sacrifice those who are trying to change things for the sake of this thinking.
The fact is that what we have to hand in terms of tools to transform the world are built out of oppression. So we have to be both critical and self-critical, something which @jeremycorbyn has actually shown. If only people like @wesstreeting were more self-critical they might
finally notice that their positions are actually a danger to people like me. But then I guess it must be nice to be a goy who doesn’t have to give a shit.
Great post 🙂
I’d have just ‘liked’ it if I didn’t hate WordPress so much I deliberately made my account irrecoverable yesterday with a blind, random and lengthy password string. WordPress don’t actually allow accounts to be closed apparently.
I also want to like this but wordpress makes that not possible. As an englishman living in ireland (and supporting the irish) it sometimes can be difficult because people DO work from stereotypes. But be clear – streeting, Mann, JLM and BBofD are trying to destroy the party under Corbyn – they are NOT interested in Jews like yourself
Sadly I don’t know and didn’t hear the name of the older (my age that is) Jewish gentleman in the green shirt who just (around 3:45pm) dismantled the antisemitic JC & LP smears and their perpetrators on BBC News (outside Parliament?). TV’s just on in the background where I’m working, sorry.
He was so effective I’m sure he must be well known in the Party and I’m embarrassed not to know of him.
I’ll be pleasantly surprised if the BBC broadcasts the interview again but I don’t think they will.
Doesn’t fit their plan at all.
Thanks for this David.
I’ve just put the interview on youtube at https://youtu.be/CWhiJKjyX6k
Really does demolish the smear campaign.
Thank YOU!
Won’t mind me borrowing it for the Twitter trolls I take it?
Better than Woody Guthrie’s guitar 🙂
David, if you haven’t taken it already, please do now.
Well at least the Daily Politics gave JVL a platform today (amazingly) to balance out the obligatory Labour right-winger (Rachel fucking Reeves, not amazingly at all!)…
Well done JVL and wish I was in London and I would be proud to stand at your side. Be disciplined brothers and sister as our opponents will be looking for the slightest thing.
Perhaps to the tune of John Brown’s body:
” Jeremy For PM, Jeremy for PM, Jeremy for PM. We want him in number ten!”
Love and Solidarity!
Oh dear and the coverage on the BBC was disgusting – BBC News 24 at 5.30pm had a Right Wing Bairite Anti-Corbyn (Jewish) Labour Peer as ‘Mr Impartial, Mr Reasonable and Mr Concerned’ but of course there was no-one there to offer a counter view – such balance and as John Pilger perhaps suggested perhaps the BBC is a skilled propagandist?
And it’s main news was appalling too giving more time to the No rather than the Yes to Corbyn group – such balance?
Someone on the ground please update us on the reality of the demo!
In the meantime I feel the need for poetry and music.
(This was from the time when the Tories were fighting for Cameron’s job and a group of Right Wing Labour MPs some suggest were perpetrating domestic violence (verbal and mental abuse) agaainst JC)
AS GOVE THE GRIMEST REAPER
IN SELFISH SEARCH FOR FAME
STABS BORIS OF BIG BROTHER
QUEEN OF NASTY LIES WAITING IN THE FRAME
AND TORY INTERNAL SLAUGHTER
BRINGS FORTH OUR HOWLS AND DERISIONS
BUT STANDS NOT ALONE
A DECENT MAN
WITH A POCKET FULL OF VISIONS
TAKE CARE OF THIS HUMAN
(and perhaps what’s really going on)
INTERREGNUM
THE OLD ORDER (NEO-LIBERALISM) IS DYING
BUT THE NEW CANNOT YET BE BORN
PERHAPS WE ARE ALL BEING TESTED
AND ONLY THE STARS WILL RIDE THE STORM
Take care brothers and sisters and to quote an old country song
“Here we go again” and John Lennon’s cover (for JC) ”Stand by Me’
Love and solidarity to all pro-JC Left Wing Democratic Socialists!
Selling national treasures like the NHS to foreign entities isn’t considered to be treason although some of us may argue that it ought to be.
British citizens helping a foreign power to influence UK elections might be thought by most to be treason.
If the foreign power was Russia there’d be no doubt.
Is acting in secret for Israel really so different?
Breaking news, according to the Jewish Chronicle there were 1,500 at this ‘ National Demonstration Against Anti-Semetism in Labour’ (?) but with perhaps less than incisive reporting they didn’t tell us just how many of the attendees were Anti-Jeremy Corbyn and perhaps how many of the “huge crowd” were Pro-Jeremy Corbyn Supporters?
The ‘Independent’ told us “hundreds attended” and “with a small group of 30 Pro-Jeremy protesters also attending” but does this truly correspond with reality?
As a left wing democratic socialist and Momentum member from miles away I was bursting to be there to support Jewish Labour Voice and Jeremy and I find it inconceivable that in a city the size of London there would have been only 30 socialists there?
As John Lennon sang: “All I want is the truth, just give me the truth!”
Searching Left Wing websites I could only find the Morning Star reporting on it which was a bit better actually giving space to JC supporters there (unlike perhaps the BBC although they did this a bit in the 10.00 News later but then included at the end what could be misconstrued as a potentially negative comment by a passer by? Hmmn) but the Morning Star (suprisingly for ‘Marxists’) told us nothing about the forces that made up the crowd.
So I would love to hear accounts from our brothers and sister who were there.
We have to remain calm and rational; this is a 3 pronged co-ordinated attack on a possible Jeremy Corbyn Left wing democratic socialist transformative Labour Govt. by the Right Wing Israeli Govt (who are losing the global PR battle post Gaza bombing), mainly Tory led Jewish UK leaders (for their own ends) and Right Wing Neo-Liberal ‘crumbs for working people’ Labour MPs (for their own ends) and the Right in Labour just cannot seem to recognise that history has passed the ‘Great Men and Women of History’ (without an original idea in their heads) by.
Perhaps it’s time for ‘The Great Masses of History’ – led by grassroots, bottom up, participatory left wing democratic socialism – a socialism WITH, perhaps what socialism was meant to be and as an example to our beautiful diverse fellow human beings – working people in every country.
We should finally reaffirm our commitment to Jewish citizens that if the Far Right was ever to re- emerge again it will be the Labour Party (and trades unions) who will be on the front line fighting on their side as we will too with Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Chinese, Irish et al and LGBT citizens plus Disabled citizens too! Solidarity Forever and the They Shall Not Pass! NO PASARAN!
X and International Solidarity!
It was clearly a hijack. This was a well organised and slick operation and we need to do better. This is probably the most serious threat to the Labour movement. All those who hate what we are trying to achieve – the city, the tories, the multinationals, the americans – everone will jump on this bandwagon unless we put it t bed. How many jews are in the party membership? How many support JLM and how many JVL? I appeal to them – this is a clear attempt to destroy our party and unfortunately it IS working
Excellent open letter from Tony Greenstein to Joan Ryan worth the read
http://freespeechonisrael.org.uk/open-letter-joan-ryan-mp-chair-labour-friends-israel/#sthash.wJwagP1M.dpbs