Anti-semitism

Saturday

Adrian Hilton

A School of Anti-Semitism?

As a teacher and lecturer, I’ve had a fair amount of indirect contact with Soas — the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. I first met one of its doctoral students in 2001, around the time I began to send my A-level students to join its impressive list of alumni, which includes government ministers, ambassadors, diplomats, judges and a Nobel laureate. It has also produced impressive research tomes of international renown and is always high up in the university league tables. A sea of diversity under one scholastic sky, with so much to learn through intercultural exchange. For many, the Soas library is a place of pilgrimage.

Thursday

David Crane

The man who changed the world

On 31 October 1517, as every child once knew, an obscure German monk nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg’s castle church and so began the Reformation. It would seem that there is no firm evidence that this ever actually happened as myth would have it, but whether Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door or glued them or merely posted them to Germany’s leading churchmen, the Christian world would never be the same again. Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet is an exploration of a man’s interior life and development and not, as Lyndal Roper insists, either a general history of the Reformation or even of the

Sunday

Steerpike

Exclusive: Corbyn’s Momentum comrade suspended from Labour over blog on Ken Livingstone’s ‘unjustified suspension’

After the recent local elections, John McDonnell put Labour’s ‘better-than-expected’ results in part down to the efforts of Momentum activists. Alas, it seems that not everyone involved with the hard-left campaign group is so in chime with the party when it comes to Labour values. Mr S understands that Momentum’s Marlene Ellis has been suspended by the party over an open letter to Corbyn from the Momentum Black ConneXions group. Ellis — who previously made the news after she was accused of labelling Chuka Umunna as not ‘politically black‘ — co-signed the blog post which calls on Corbyn to reverse the ‘unjustified suspension of Ken Livingstone’ after the former mayor was suspended over his

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Yay, root out those Jew-haters, Jeremy!

A long and arduous flight back from the Caucasus, but worth it nonetheless for the meaningful protest we had staged in the fragrant and lovely Georgian capital, Tbilisi. They have opened a vegan restaurant there called the Café Kiwi — an affront not just to ordinary Georgians, but to all right-thinking people, surely. A bunch of us stormed the place carrying large chunks of grilled lamb on skewers and spicy sausages, which we flung at the epicene customers, who cowered beneath their tables and were unable to fight back because their bones had been made as brittle as matchwood by a diet consisting entirely of nuts and berries. ‘Eat some

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Voters have no time for the flaccid centre

A depression has settled on the Liddle household ever since Norbert Hofer narrowly failed in his bid to become the president of Austria. I like a man who keeps a Glock pistol in his jacket pocket, and there is something noble in the cut of his jib. Norbert was thwarted by the voters of Red Vienna and the usual fraudulent postal ballots, most of which will have come from immigrants, as happens time and again in this country. So he lost. Instead the Austrians are saddled with a lunatic, Alexander Van der Bellen, a hand-wringing Green halfwit representing what George Orwell was habituated to call the ‘pansy left’. Interestingly, both

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Will Labour convict me of thought crime?

I got an email this week, from a chap called Harry, which began as follows: ‘I am writing to inform you that I will be carrying out the investigation on behalf of the Labour party into the circumstances that resulted in your suspension from the party.’ Harry went on to say that he will be ‘conducting interviews with witnesses’ and added: ‘I will also need a time when you are available for an interview.’ This last presumably as an afterthought: I suppose we need to hear from him. Anyway, at this interview (to be conducted in London, natch) I am allowed to bring along a ‘silent witness’ —someone who is not

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 5 May 2016

Home Naz Shah MP was suspended from the Labour Party after the blogger Guido Fawkes revealed that in 2014, nine months before she beat George Galloway to win the seat of Bradford West, she had posted on Facebook a proposal to ‘relocate Israel into the United States’, adding the comment: ‘Problem solved and save you bank charges for the £3bn you transfer yearly.’ Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, said: ‘It’s not a crisis. There’s no crisis.’ Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, said on the wireless: ‘When Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism —

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

How to save Labour

To say that the Labour party is in crisis because it is ‘too left-wing’ is to miss the point spectacularly. With eyes wide open, and all democratic procedures punctiliously observed, its members have chosen in their tens of thousands to endorse not ‘the left’, but an ugly simulacrum of left-wing politics. They have gone along with the type of left-winger who flourished in the long boom between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the great recession. The hypocrite who damns oppression, but only if it is committed by western countries. The pseudo-egalitarian who will condemn sexism and homophobia, but not the prejudices of favoured regimes and minorities. The fake

Wednesday

Julie Burchill

Are there any Jews who still support Labour?

Many years ago, sometime in the last century (how worldly I feel writing that!) I was at the launch party for the dear dead Modern Review mark II and feeling mildly appalled by the whole flimsy thing when a young man introduced himself to me as Nick Cohen and told me he’d be writing for us. ‘O, a Cohen!’ I exclaimed happily, all innocence. ‘Just what this magazine needs – a clever Jew!’ Did I ever get a mouthful! ‘I’m not a Jew – my family rejected Judaism decades ago…never been so insulted…’ ‘But your name is the name of Moses’ brother – Aaron!’ I pointed out. ‘How can you not be a Jew?

Tuesday

Rod Liddle

I know who I’m supporting in the Corbyn-Hodge leadership contest

Christ help us – Corbyn or Hodge! I think, given the choice, I’m pretty firmly with Jezza. One deranged bien-pensant half of Islington versus the other. At least Corbyn isn’t smug. It’s one of the few things you can say in his favour. Re the anti-Semitism. There are a number of broad points to make. First, it is absolutely endemic within two sections of the Labour Party – the perpetually adolescent white middle-class lefties, and the Muslims – the latter of which now comprise a significant proportion of Labour activists and voters in parts of London and the dilapidated former mill-towns of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire. And Luton. And

Steerpike Steerpike

Have Hamas declared their support for Jeremy Corbyn?

It’s less than 48 hours until the polls open for the local elections and following last week’s anti-Semitism media-storm, Corbyn needs all the friends he can get if he hopes to keep voters onside. Alas, some friends are more helpful than others. As Labour try and show that they do not condone anti-Semitism, Corbyn has reportedly received a declaration of support from… Hamas. Yes, following Corbyn’s decision to reject calls to denounce the Islamist group — whose armed wing is banned as a terrorist organisation in the UK —  Breitbart Jerusalem report that Taher A-Nunu, a senior Hamas official, has said that Corbyn’s willingness to engage with the Gaza-based group as a

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

Britain’s Christian culture has risen above the recent religious brawl

Our political culture contains some tension between Jews and Muslims. And some secular anti-Semitism, particularly on the left, and some Islamophobia. But, at the risk of getting Pollyannaish, let us see the positive. This country’s main religious culture, Christianity, is not involved in any of this nastiness. It does not contain any substantial prejudice against Muslims or Jews. It is not significantly invoked by our (rather mild) nativist movement, Ukip. Yes, Farage sometimes says that he stands for Christian values, but this is just a harmless and desperate bit of rhetoric. The louder message is that the Queen asked that lovely Muslim baker to her party. Let us be quietly proud that our

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Zero tolerance for anti-Zionists? The right is now as PC as the left

So now we know: the right and the respectable left are just as good at PC purges as potty, radical students are. In fact they’re better. The effective exiling of Ken Livingstone from polite society; yesterday’s almost hourly toppling of Labour councillors who once tweeted or Facebooked something ugly about Israel; the scouring of social media in search of Zionist-haters we might expose and shame and crush… all this zealous speech-policing, this crusading against people who said the unsayable, has made the intolerant, No Platforming student left look like amateurs in comparison. The right is out-PCing the left. I know what the warriors against anti-Semitic idiocy in sections of the

Sunday

James Forsyth

Diane Abbott says it is smear to say Labour has a problem with anti-Semitism

Labour might have hoped that the announcement of an independent inquiry into the issue of anti-Semitism in the party would have drawn a line under the matter, and let the party get back to its election message ahead of polling day on Thursday. But comments by senior Labour figures are ensuring that this row continues. This morning, Diane Abbott went on the Marr show and said that ‘It is a smear to say that Labour has a problem with anti-Semitism’—which makes you wonder why Jeremy Corbyn has set up an inquiry into the issue. If this was not enough, Unite leader Len McCluskey declared on the radio that ‘The idea

Saturday

James Forsyth

The battle for Labour’s soul

Normally, when we talk about a party being in ‘crisis’ we are really referring to a policy dispute or a bad set of election results. But the crisis currently engulfing Labour is far more serious than that. It is about the party’s very soul, I argue in The Sun this morning. The events of this week have demonstrated that Labour has a serious, and growing, problem with anti-Semitism. One of the party’s newly elected MPs has been suspended for making anti-Semitic comments and the party’s former Mayor of London has been suspended from the party after a bizarre and distasteful attempt to link Hitler and Zionism. But Jeremy Corbyn has

Friday

Tom Goodenough

‘Labour at war’: Papers make miserable reading for Corbyn as Ken row rumbles on

The Labour party knew that the row over Ken Livingstone’s suspension was not going to disappear overnight. And this morning’s papers show that this story will be bubbling along for some time. All of this comes at a dreadful time for Labour with just days to go until Britain goes to the polls. In particular, it will be interesting to see how these front pages could have an impact on London’s mayoral race. Sadiq Khan has acted swiftly to distance himself from what happened. But with this very public row not likely to go anywhere any time soon, whether this undermining of Labour’s credibility affects Khan remains to be seen.

Thursday

Douglas Murray

Labour’s anti-Semitism problem stems from its grassroots

If I were the Conservative party I’d be getting worried: Labour’s implosion is happening too fast. At this rate they could fall apart and regroup in time to go into the next election with a respectable leader. Everybody knows the latest developments. Naz Shah MP was found to have said some anti-Semitic things on social media. After some bitter internal wrangling she was suspended from the party. Fellow MP Rupa Huq tried to come to her defence and compared anti-Semitism to any old mishap. And then Ken Livingstone smoothed it all over by talking about which of Hitler’s policies he thinks Zionists agree with. The low-point today was probably the

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Today in audio: Ken’s day to forget

Ken Livingstone has been suspended by the Labour party after plonking himself firmly at the centre of the anti-Semitism row by once again stepping in to defend Naz Shah. The former London mayor said the Labour MP’s remarks were ‘over-the-top but they were not anti-Semitic’. During his interview with Vanessa Feltz, he added: ‘Let’s remember when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism and this was before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.’ Next up for Ken was the Daily Politics show, in which he tried again to defend his remarks. Ken

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: John Mann takes on Ken Livingstone over anti-Semitism – ‘you are a Nazi apologist’

As the Labour party continues to implode over the party’s handling of Naz Shah’s anti-Semitic social media posts, a number of MPs have turned on Ken Livingstone in light of his comments today on anti-Semitism. However, John Mann has gone one step futher. The Labour MP confronted Livingstone over his claim that Hitler supported Zionism, just before Livingstone appeared on the Daily Politics: ‘You’re a Nazi apologist, rewriting history, rewriting history, rewriting history. Go back and check what Hitler did, go back and check. There’s a book called Mein Kampf, you’ve obviously never heard of it.’ Mann then appeared on the Daily Politics to repeat his claim — this time appearing from a

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Labour’s halfwits have revealed their anti-Semitic side

My guess is that the people who voted for Naz Shah at the last election think she did not go anywhere near far enough in her comments about transporting Jews. Ms Shah is, somehow, still the MP for Bradford West, a seat she yanked from under the feet of someone we had all assumed had the votes of anti-Semites in the constituency sewn up. This is problem number one, for Labour. The loathing of Israel, and concomitant anti-Semitism, among its core Muslim vote is implacable. But problem number two is that Labour’s white middle-class metro liberal halfwits, of which Jeremy Corbyn is undoubtedly a member, are also disposed towards anti-Semitism. They