Sultana is 100% right: capitulation to the antisemitism scam must never be repeated

And anyone who hasn’t learned that lesson must be nowhere near Your Party

All too predictably, Your Party co-founder Zarah Sultana has been attacked and smeared in the ‘mainstream’ media for an interview in which she said Labour under Corbyn ‘capitulated’ to the Israel lobby’s pressure to adopt the unfit ‘IHRA working definition of antisemitism’ – which even its creator has disowned – as Labour party policy.

Sultana was asked in an interview how she thought Corbynism needs to be adapted for Your Party today and replied that:

I think we’re in a very different political moment. We have to build on the strengths of Corbynism – its energy, mass appeal and bold policy platform – and we also have to recognise its limitations. It capitulated to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which famously equates it with anti-Zionism, and which even its lead author Kenneth Stern has now publicly criticised.

The so-called ‘IHRA working definition’ (IHRA for short) has been condemned by legal and human rights experts, including in Israel, for failing to define anything and being constructed to quell criticism of Israel – and by its author Kenneth Stern – as well as for enabling false accusations of antisemitism. Which makes it entirely predictable that Sultana is being accused of antisemitism for daring to criticise it.

In fact, the non-definition ‘definition’ was so unfit for purpose that in 2016 even arch-Zionist Keir Starmer was among the MPs who wanted to have it amended before it was adopted:

Video: Starmer tried to amend IHRA ‘definition’

The ‘IHRA’ was one of the main tools of the Israel lobby’s war on Corbyn’s Labour, weaponising antisemitism – as even the Starmer-commissioned, barrister-created Forde Report acknowledged – against Corbyn and the left. As Corbyn and his team were repeatedly counselled, when a bad-faith accusation is weaponised to get rid of you, the worst possible thing you can do is give in to it. You can find a compromise with people who are genuinely upset about something, but compromising with someone who just wants your head is deadly – and Israel’s supporters were determined to see Corbyn gone, because they knew he would quickly recognise Palestine and resist Israel’s occupation. They were never going to take yes for an answer.

So clear was this to most left-wingers that they quickly dubbed it, to the fury of the apartheid apologists – now genocide apologists – the “antisemitism scam”.

But the capitulation on the IHRA identified by Sultana was one of the first big steps on the slippery slope of wider capitulation that left Corbyn’s Labour constantly backpedalling in the hope of finally appeasing its accusers – what has been termed the “apologise and move on” approach of Corbyn’s LOTO team that was always doomed to fail because the accusers never intended to move on. Even after Corbyn stepped down as leader in 2020, the Israel lobby continued to push Starmer and criticise his purge of the left for not going far enough, warning him that it could only be a beginning, even as they gave it a qualified welcome.

This frankness led to a major hissy-fit from Israel-lobby groups, who again regurgitated the lie that the IHRA is used worldwide – fewer than a quarter of the world’s 195 countries use it – and only seven that were not already part of the IHRA organisation – and launched an antisemitism smear attack against Sultana.

The vice-president of the Board of Deputies, a group whose constitution says that it exists to advance Israel’s interests and which earlier this year demanded control of the BBC’s Gaza output, raged that:

Calling the recognition of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism a ‘capitulation’ is a grave insult. Labour’s real betrayal under Corbyn was unlawfully harassing and discriminating against Jews. Those who seek to delegitimise and mis-define the IHRA definition in this way prove themselves to be no friend to the Jewish community and also call into question their wider commitment to anti-racism, the wellbeing of the Jewish community and social cohesion.

The Israel-funded ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’ (CAA) was at the forefront of the campaign to take down Corbyn; its CEO Gideon Falter was exposed last year, as the Israel lobby tried to discredit the anti-genocide movement as a threat to Jews, claiming that London police had stopped him from simply trying to cross the road near a march against Israel’s genocide in Gaza (he didn’t call it that, of course), when in reality he was trying, accompanied by a security detail, to walk against the march and was told by police that was the reason they were preventing him:

A CAA spokesperson suggested that Sultana of usurping the right of (at least pro-Israel) Jews to “If Jews do not have the right to “define the hatred that targets them”.

The so-called ‘Labour against Antisemitism’ (LAAS), another pro-Israel group, frothed at the mouth in February at the idea that the BBC should broadcast a documentary showing how Israel’s war on the people of Gaza was affecting Palestinian children, with LAAS director Alex Hearn raving that the BBC was ‘regurgitating Hamas propaganda’. Hearn also falsely accused Dutch anti-genocide protesters last year of “protest[ing] against the opening of a Holocaust museum”.

So of course, the ‘MSM’ were happy to give him space to attack Sultana and he was happy to oblige. spewing that there should be “no place in a mainstream political party for the likes of Ms Sultana”:

Zarah Sultana has fundamentally misrepresented the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. It is unsurprising that she opposes it, given her history. There should be no place in a mainstream political party for the likes of Ms Sultana, and it is surprising that the Labour Party tolerated her for so long.

Starmer’s husk of what was once the Labour party was, of course, eager to get a dig in, claiming that voters had “twice made their view clear about a Jeremy Corbyn-led party”. Well, yes they did – voters gave Corbyn far more votes in both general elections than Starmer got in 2017 and voters now won’t touch Starmer with the proverbial barge-pole. A party spokesperson went on that:

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party rightly tore anti-Semitism out at its roots. Corbyn almost led the party to extinction. We’re not going back.

S/he failed to mention, naturally, that Starmer’s party has disproportionately targeted Jews for expulsion – and that his government is prosecuting many Jews for daring to speak out against genocide.

Sultana responded with a general comment on social media that:

The smears won’t work this time. I say it loudly and proudly: I’m an anti-Zionist. Print that.

She understands that the only approach to antisemitism smears is to take them head-on, and she is already demonstrating it:

And she is 100% right. With Israel now exposed as the genocidal, lying land-thief that its opponents always knew it was, the antisemitism scam is a disgraced con and the reflex accusations of antisemitism by genocide apologists are a laughing stock to the public and a badge of honour to those who side with humanity and human rights.

The ‘apologise and move on’ approach pushed by some of Corbyn’s advisers was always madness or worse – and a fear among many of those who support ‘Your Party’ and want it to succeed is that those who pushed it still retain huge influence and will sow the seeds of its destruction by continuing to quail or triangulate when faced with the busted flush of antisemitism smears.

For the sake of a country being pushed by its government into fascism – and of the Palestinian people facing extermination by the coloniser aided by its apologists – nobody who hasn’t learned that lesson and isn’t prepared to tell the smearers where to insert their smears – sideways – should and must be nowhere near any influence in the new party.

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