UK: Defend Jeremy Corbyn and his Supporters against the recent Zionist and Blairite Witchhunt!
Reinstate Tony Greenstein, Ken Livingstone and other Anti-Zionists expelled from the Labour Party for Alleged Anti-Semitism!
For a United Anti-Imperialist Front against All Forms of Imperialism!
By Joseph Adams, RCIT BRITAIN. https://rcitbritain.wordpress.com/, https://inforedliberation.wordpress.com/
Jeremy Corbyn, the left reformist leader of the Labour party, has again been attacked for “Anti-Semitism” in the Labour party by pro-Zionist and right wing Blairites. This development is neither surprising nor can the accusation been characterized as anything else than slander by the right wing forces inside Labour. They are just determined to force Corbyn to resign and purge and expel most of his supporters. The bourgeois media supports this slander and has launched a concerted campaign against Corbyn. Their aim is to portray a Corbyn-led Labour Party as racist and unfit for office. “One of Labour’s biggest private donors has said he no longer feels “any affinity or connection” with the party, and accuses its leadership of failing in its response to “the most blatant acts of antisemitism”. As Labour struggles to quell a renewed outcry over the issue, Sir David Garrard, who has donated about £1.5m since 2003, said the party he had supported “no longer exists”. Despite funding Labour under three leaders before Jeremy Corbyn ’s election to the post, he had now left the party, he revealed. He told the Observer that he had watched the current handling of the issue with “growing dismay and foreboding”. [1].
At a time when Teresa May's government is in terminal crisis the right wing Blairites launch this witch-hunt on the eve of council elections, on May 3rd in London and in the Metropolitan districts of Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. The Blairites want Corbyn and the Labour party defeated. They receive help by people like Jeremy Newmark, who is the chairperson of the Jewish Labour Organisation, an institution affiliated not only to the Labour Party but also to the Israeli Labour Party and the World Zionist Organization. The latter is well known for a practice of systematic stealing of Palestinian private land in order to give it to Israeli settlers, a story even covered by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. [2].
Prominent Anti Zionists in Labour against the witch hunt including Tony Greenstein and Jackie Walker have signed a petition in support of Corbyn.
“As socialist members and Labour Party supporters, we are firm opponents of all forms of racism, fascism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all other kinds of oppression. Many of us have been actively campaigning against them for many years, often alongside you, John McDonnell and other comrades.
We know anti-Semitism exists in society and needs to be combatted. But we are seriously worried about the current climate in the Labour Party, where any criticism of the actions of the state of Israel is now immediately conflated with anti-Semitism. But anti-Zionism does not equal anti-Semitism.
What we are seeing is a cynical alliance between those who wish to deflect criticism of Israel and Zionism, and the right-wing in the Labour Party and the news media, who oppose your wider politics. They are thereby undermining genuine anti-racism and opposition to anti-Semitism. Their real target is you, because they oppose both your record of internationalism, in particular your lifelong support for the rights of the Palestinians, and your commitment to socialism. That is what the few bitterly oppose: the many gaining power.
Yet we are witnessing the development of the opposite to open and frank debate. There is now a chilling culture of fear, self-censorship, of members afraid to openly ask questions and learn, particularly on social media. We have seen many good Corbyn-supporting comrades being thrown to the wolves of the Tory Party and their supporters in the mainstream media. They are publicly smeared as Holocaust deniers, anti-Semites, racists – and have no way of fighting back against such vile accusations. These types of smears have ruined lives. Labour’s broken disciplinary procedure, that voices on all sides now accept is not fit for purpose, has actually resulted in suicides. As socialists we insist on our right to continue to publicly and sharply criticize the actions of a state that brutally oppresses Palestinians and black migrants. If we stop doing this, we stop being socialists”. [3].
Only recently Corbyn attended an event hosted by a semi anarchist group called Jewdas. The group was founded in 2006 and was characterized by The Jewish Chronicle as a “Jewish diaspora group, known for its far-left anti-Zionism”. Jewdas is known for its very satiric approach to various political questions and its mockery on Zionist ideas. In addition they have been active in anti-fascist protests and are well known both in the anarchist milieu of London as well by a number of progressive, radical youth with jewish background. Corbyn visited Jewdas at the Passover Seder, a Jewish ritual feast which was also celebrated by the group. He was roundly criticized by Blairites and Zionists for participating at the social of Jewdas, which is slandered as not being “real jewish” by the Zionists. [4].
“Jeremy Corbyn has been accused by his own MPs of acting "irresponsibly and dangerously" by attending an event hosted by a far-left Jewish group which called for the destruction of Israel and dismissed the anti-Semitism row engulfing the party as "faux-outrage".
The Labour leader was photographed at a Passover Seder hosted by Jewdas, a satirical group which describes itself as "radical" and is highly critical of mainstream Jewish organisations.
Last week Jewdas attacked the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council’s response to the Labour anti-Semitism scandal as “playing a dangerous game with people’s lives”. [5].
The witch-hunt against Corbyn coincided with the massacre against innocent and unarmed Palestinians by the Zionist Israeli state which was given less coverage by the bourgeois media in Britain compared to the witch hunt against Corbyn and his supporters. This is particularly disgusting given the fact that apartheid state Israel is mobilizing since week brutally against the legitim and democratic protests of the Palestinian people. Even the actress Natalie Portman, who has a dual American and Israeli citizenship, has refused to participate at an event in Israel because she is opposed to the undemocratic and oppressive behaviour of Israel during the recent protests. Not to speak about a number of political activists, even from a left-Zionist background, who shared these criticism. However, not only is the Palestinian voice ignored by the British press, but even the liberal, more left zionists are critized if not slandered badly.
“On March 30, 30,000 -50,000 Palestinians from Gaza, demonstrated for their right to return to their country and lands, stolen by the Zionist state. During the ethnic cleansing during 1948-1947 Zionist forces removed 750,000 Palestinians and made them refugees. Survivors, their descendants and their supporters demonstrated in Gaza behind the fence that makes Gaza a Palestinian ghetto under siege
A Journalist from Gaza, while being interviewed a day before by Israeli TV, said that the people of Gaza are tired of Hamas and the PA have incited the action. They do not want to live under siege.
The Zionist army responded by shooting live ammunition and tear gas. The result of this shooting was the killing of 17 Palestinians while 1,400 were injured, many of them by live bullets. Two Palestinians were killed by tank fire, the Gaza Health Ministry said. The Israeli military said the two were militants who had opened fire at troops across the border. [6]
The RCIT in BRITAIN condemns unreservedly the witch-hunt against Corbyn and his supporters. We defend both Corbyn as well as all anti-zionist activists who are attacked by the bourgeois media and the Blairites. This does not mean that we are uncritical to Corbyn who still panders and capitulates to the Blairites in the party and refuses to take actions against either the pro-zionist forces or the Blairites themselves. Even the leader of Momentum (a pro Corbyn organization), Jon Lansmann, agrees with the witchhunters by saying that there is a problem in the Labour party's approach towards anti-semitism displaying an open pro-zionist position. “Current examples of anti-Semitism within the Labour party are not only a problem of a few, extreme 'bad apples', but also of unconscious bias, which manifests itself in varied, nuanced and subtle ways and is more widespread in the Labour party than many of us had understood even a few months ago"[7].
It is part of the exhausting repertoire of the Zionists to automatically denounce any criticism against Israel as anti-Semitism. The Zionist lobby in the Labour party has been very strong ever since the 1945 Labour led government has recognized the State of Israel in 1948. The Blairites together with the Zionists are determined to stamp out any opposition to the imperialist, racist and apartheid state of Israel and with this to get rid of the left wing in Labour.
THE RCIT IN BRITAIN calls for a UNITED ANTI-IMPERIALIST FRONT against all aspects of Zionism and Imperialism. We put forward the following demands to unite the working class and the oppressed against Imperialist interests inside and outside the Labour Party.
* Call on the National Executive of the Labour Party to reinstate all Labour Party members who have been suspended or expelled for criticizing the Israeli apartheid state respectively for arguing against Blairite positions.
* Abolish the Compliance Unit! Establish Labour Party Democracy.
* Expel all Pro-Zionist and Blairite Organizations in the Labour Party including Labour Friends of Israel, The Jewish Labour Movement, Progress and Labour First as being incompatible with Labour party democratic principles. This should be discussed and decided by a membership meeting of Labour activists.
* For a Free Democratic Palestine from the River to the Sea. Support the Intifada and the struggle for one, red, free PALESTINE.
Footnotes
2) https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/wzos-land-theft-division-1.5465930
4) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/03/jeremy-corbyn-passover-jewdas-good-news