o/t Does anyone seriously believe Corbyn is an anti-semite?

[ragingpup]

I watched the video long before you put it up, raging. I like to know what I am talking about before posting. I see no reason to draw the distinction that you want me to as. I also don't understand why you want me to. Are you saying that it is ok for him to talk in a discriminatory fashion about a, presumably small, group of Jews? Your are ok with that?

Clutch at straws and try to defend the indefensible all you want to, but I’m not going to help you with it.

Any thoughts upon why Corbyn can’t seem to bring himself to show support for the oppressed citizens of Venezuela and Cuba given that you say that he has historically ‘argued and stood on the side of the people that he considers to be oppressed’ ?

Are you happy then when a small group of England behave in a violent manner in a pub abroad and as a result all England fans are criticised as hooligans? How are the dynamics different?

[ragingpup]

My re-write of history? If you disagree with my version of history then you could explain why, but please try to achieve a better understanding than you and the other Corbyn apologists have demonstrated on this thread. Frankly some of levels of ‘understanding’ on display have all the hallmarks of having come from a pamphlet handed out on the steps of the university union and from nowhere else. The people handing out such leaflets often have an agenda.

You disagree with my history starting with the Ottoman Empire and want me to go 200+ years before the start of Jews returning to the Palestine area as I described? If we go back 200 years from the middle of the 19th century – which is where I began - we get back to the middle of the 17th century, when the area was part of the Ottoman Empire... What were you trying to achieve with your suggestion?

There were large scale returns of Jews to the area several times over the last thousand years or so, usually in response to persecution in one part of Europe or another.

You demonstrate a lack of understanding of the Ottoman Empire. You ask what the religion of the ‘Ottoman people’ was. If you mean the citizens of the Ottoman Empire then they were from a range of religions (in much the same way that the British Empire had many Hindu and Muslim citizens in the sub-continent as well as Christians). The predominant religion was Muslim, but there were many Christian and Jewish citizens. As I have stated previously, the people who inhabited the region knowns as Palestine were predominately Muslim, but there were significant numbers of Christians and Jews. There are still many Christian Palestinians – although large numbers chose to settle in Israel - but their numbers are dwindling following the rise of Muslim fundamentalism.

The thing is that just about everything you post on the subject demonstrates that you just don’t get why the views that you clearly hold on Israel and which appear to tally with those of Corbyn and many of his acolytes can be seen as antisemitic. You are so set in your views that you just can’t see it. You have this simplistic ‘Palestinian good – Israel bad’ thing going on, which doesn’t even begin to accurately reflect the complexities of the situation. You refer to the creation of the state of Israel as a carve up, whilst WanChai thinks it was an act of apartheid by Atlee’s Labour government. You seem to be unable to recognise and take account of the interests of the Jews who lived in the Palestine region – around 650 000 by the end of WW2 – about third of the population - with more arriving every day.

Given that you don’t like what the UN did when it created Israel (and neither does Corbyn given that one of the caveats that he wanted adding to the Labour definition of antisemitism was that it was ok to refer to the creation of Israel as an act of racism), can you explain what your solution would have been to the large and growing Jewish population of the region? Would you have sunk the ships that were bringing the Jews to the area or would you have simply opened large camps into which they could be concentrated until you could come up with a final solution? You may not like those questions, but I’d really like to know your answers. If you are going to look at the world with your Corbynista blinkers on and criticise what was done, you should really have an idea of what you would have done. I think you’ll find it a bit more difficult than adopting the simplistic, starkly black and white and hopelessly naïve views that you appear to hold on the subject.

The issue of the large and growing Jewish population in Palestine at the end of the British mandate could not simply be made to go away by wishing. It was real and it was growing. The UN came up with a two state solution, but the Arabs in the surrounding countries rejected that and chose to declare war instead and, as is often the case, many people suffered as a consequnce. I don’t suppose you will be able to move from the Corbynista position and bring yourself to criticise the Arabs for that.

***Reply in 2 parts as post too long ***
Are you actually able to discuss an issue without constant referral to Corbyn? In an exchange on Israel/Palestinian conflict history you have mentioned him 5 times! I think my understanding of the region’s history is pretty sound actually thank you very much – my wife is Jewish, we’ve been together for 10 years, and much of my understanding of the conflict comes from long discussions with her family, who are very politically aware and with a mixture of perspectives. I’ve been discussing the conflict with them many, many years before Corbyn became more prominent.

As I said in an earlier post, I’m interested in objectivity and how political decisions affects human beings in societies and cause repercussions.

There are two aspects of this discussion that I think need greater appreciation:

1) Deeper historical context. The impact on changes in territory on people that have lived on that land for generations. As you almost resentfully concede, the generations under the Ottoman Empire (1500 – 1800) were predominantly of Muslim religion. These are the people whose roots were laid down in the Palestinian land in the period leading up to the 1834 (was it?) uprising. It was only in the following 80 years that settlers from other countries (and religions) started arriving, a very slow and largely peaceful settling until the point at WW1. Only at this point (1919), when the British Empire occupied the land did hundreds of years of Muslim rule in the area end. So this would have happened to the great, great grandparents of the current Arab people. Only at this point did Arab resistance activities gain momentum, and as I’ve said above, one cannot condone killing of innocent people, but on a human level, can we not understand how this must have felt to the Palestinian people, with long familial roots in the region, to be suddenly governed by a Christian empire. And of course, having this Empire accelerate the influx and settlement of other people who don’t share the values and traditions of the native culture. I’m not saying that any culture should not be subject to change and upheaval, but when it is insensitively managed (as we know from current influxes of non-natives into the UK and Europe) it can and did here cause dreadful problems. This history, and resentment on how history was “done to them” underscores a lot of Arab resentment and hostility in the area, just as long ago historical actions of the British government caused huge scars with atrocities against the Irish people. These linger and need to be acknowledged and discussed in order to heal and move forward. (re: what would I have done? Well 1. I wouldn’t have imposed Christian rule and occupation over a predominantly Muslim nation; I would have kept their area self-ruling and supported their growth and 2. I wouldn’t have encouraged mass-settlement of people into the area without any settlement and integration plan so that the laws and traditions of the people whose ancestors had lived here for hundreds of years weren’t abruptly challenged. Easy to say with hindsight, and I accept that it was and is very complex, but you did ask!

2) Recent History. Having accepted that ‘we are where we are’ and that the UN after WW2 acted with all good intentions and reasonably suggested a 2 state solution with designated land and borders for the Jewish and Arab peoples. However, a human by product of such an act, as well intentioned as it may have been, was to somewhat arbitrarily place many Arab and Jewish civilians into the territory of the opposite culture! So Mum and Dad Arab/Jew might have ended up in Arab territory but old Grandma Arab/Jew in the Jewish territory. And unfortunately for your reading of this history, the Arab people are the ones with territorial roots and heritage across these borders, so I think rightly feel hugely aggrieved by the actions moving forward into the next ‘phase’ of history. And this is where I think we still need to go back and unravel events in order to peaceably move forward: As part of the 1948 war declared by the Arabs, Israel effectively pushed back the Palestinian fighters into their own territory (as allocated by the UN) and as the war ended, did not move back out of these areas, thereby violating what most people recognise as international law (that territories occupied by war should be ‘returned’ at the end of the war) and have kept these territories to this day. The 1967 ‘war’ again resulted in Israel occupying large tracts of Palestinian allocated land and settling Jewish people there. Further to this, in more recent times, Israel continue via hostile means to move further into ‘allocated’ Palestinian territory and have established villages and even towns within these territories, under armed protection. All of these in violation of the UN borders and against what most countries regard as international law. This is where many feel resentful of successive Israeli governments. ***to be continued***!

[ragingpup]

***Continued from above***

Clearly, Palestinians have and do take part in their own share of terrorist activities which cannot be justified by any measure. But I think that to argue that the situation is just two polemics that are just as bad as each other is a dreadful misreading of the history of the region. My own Jewish family are in complete opposition to successive Israeli governmental actions in Palestine and I am in general agreement with them. It is as you rightly say, a hugely complex situation and to move forward, all parties need to accept their part in the troubles. But fundamentally to this, Israel needs to backtrack on its non-UN allocated occupations, recognise the historical origins of the area over the centuries, accept the mistakes that it made in imposing quite radical changes on the region’s native people, whilst at the same time, Palestinian leaders need to accept their wrongs in organised terrorism over the years as a response to these and follow the lessons learned from the Ireland peace process. In my opinion, this will not happen whilst Israel occupies parts of Palestinian land and Israel continue to treat Jewish and Palestinian citizens within its borders differently.

Soz for long, long post.

[monty_rhodes]

I think the situation is fundamentally different from Ireland for a number of reasons. I think that rather than a meaningful peace we will see war in the Middle East quite possibly involving nuclear weapons. No one wants peace, no one has any clear idea of what peace would look like or entail and no one has the ability or will to make the necessary concessions. As to the OP I have changed my mind; I think Corbyn probably is antisemitic and as such is following a tradition of the British left going back to the nineteenth century.

[brassgnat]

All gone quiet on this thread, after the constant barrage from the establishment, media, Tories, right wing Labour MPs etc, about antisemitism coming from Corbyn and the Left, Tory MEPs backed the Ultra-Right and ultra anti-Semite Hungarian PM Victor Urbon, who is full of Jews are controlling everything s**t.

[KerrAvon]

Careful brass. raging will get upset about you mentioning Corbyn on a thread about Corbyn.

[ragingpup]

Careful brass. raging will get upset about you mentioning Corbyn on a thread about Corbyn.

Do you jolt awake up in the night in a cold Corbyn dread-sweat?

He IS coming to get ya...

[monty_rhodes]

Do you jolt awake up in the night in a cold Corbyn dread-sweat?

He IS coming to get ya...

Yes but you see Kerr considers himself to be an impartial and rational analyst. He's no such thing and no better than the posters he condemns. He is selective in his use of evidence - probably not even realising he is - and it is all merely intended to reinforce prejudices that inform his world view. His suggestion once that "as the evidence changes so does my opinion" is laughable. I don't know why you bother arguing with him - he's not even humorous or nice.

[CASPER-64-FRANK]

Do you jolt awake up in the night in a cold Corbyn dread-sweat?

He IS coming to get ya...

He had better hurry up then.
My guess is JC won't be leader of the Labour Party after the end of March 2019.
All dependent on when the Tories call an election after Brexit, he could go before March. ( hopefully )
Unfortunately when JC steps down he will nominate another far left candidate.

[monty_rhodes]

He had better hurry up then.
My guess is JC won't be leader of the Labour Party after the end of March 2019.
All dependent on when the Tories call an election after Brexit, he could go before March. ( hopefully )
Unfortunately when JC steps down he will nominate another far left candidate.

Both main parties seem in complete disarray. There's very little identity of interest between the Metropolitan Labour activists and traditional Labour voters in the north and midlands but the former and their allied have a grip on the party machine. Logically both Tories and Labour should split but will they?