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Thread: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

  1. #481

    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    Quote Originally Posted by Prodromos View Post
    I think based on the polling data most British Jews oppose Israel's "Palestinian policy", so I don't think that's it.
    Most British Jews aren't members of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aexodus View Post
    Well that would mean an OP that denigrates Muslims as a group.

    What threads are these?
    A tiny selection, there are many more including your speciality, trojan OPs which start with a legimate current event but are then led on to off-topic discussion of Muslims / Mohammed or migrants.

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...hlight=muslims (my favourite btw)

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-Muslims/page4

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...erever-they-go

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ated-countries

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...m-Demographics
    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...llow-islamists

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...a-rape-culture
    Last edited by mongrel; February 05, 2019 at 03:05 PM.
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  2. #482

    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    The vast majority of British Jews, and certainly left-wing/Labour Jews, are fairly critical of Israel's policies, so when most Jews sense anti-Semitism, it's likely not because they want to paint all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...raels-policies

    It found 90% support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, but the poll also found mass discomfort with the policies of the Israeli government. More than half (58%) said Israel “will be seen as an apartheid state if it tries to retain control over borders that contain more Arabs than Jews” – in effect, if it continues its 47-year occupation of the Palestinian territories.

    The poll is the first major survey of the attitudes of British Jews to Israel since 2010. It was commissioned by Yachad, a pro-peace organisation based in the UK, and carried out by Ipsos Mori, with independent analysis led by City University.

    The findings will bolster British advocates of a peace deal with the Palestinians. Although the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, routinely proclaims his willingness to negotiate a two-state solution to the conflict, there has been no progress towards peace since he took office in 2009.

    The key findings of the poll include:

    • 75% of British Jews agree that “the expansion of settlements on the West Bank is a major obstacle to peace”, and 68% have a “sense of despair” whenever new expansion is approved.
    • 73% believe Israel’s approach to peace is damaging its standing in the world.
    • 71% see the two-state solution as the only way Israel can achieve peace.
    • 72% reject the statement that “the Palestinians have no legitimate claim to a land of their own”.
    • 62% support ceding territory to achieve peace, but that falls to 50% if withdrawal is seen as posing a risk to Israel’s security.
    • 47% see the Israeli government as “constantly creating obstacles to avoid engaging in the peace process” (32% disagreed).
    https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...isemitism-ihra

    The IHRA controversy has also distorted and obscured what the tension over Labour and antisemitism is really about. Because of the focus on the four IHRA examples that Labour dropped back in July, it’s often looked as if the disagreement is entirely about Israel/Palestine – as if, when you get right down to it, the Jewish community cannot tolerate criticism of Israel and that its problem with Corbyn is that he is just too passionate a campaigner for Palestinian rights.

    Of course that might be true for some. But for many Jews, especially within Labour, the picture is very different. Witness Sunday’s conference in London of the Jewish Labour Movement, many of whose members have been most vocal in criticising Labour over antisemitism. A curious thing happened when Gordon Brown addressed the conference. At one point, he called for the establishment of a Palestinian state, the sharing of Jerusalem and the withdrawal of settlements – going on to denounce Donald Trump for cutting off funding of Palestinian refugees. He was interrupted by loud applause.

    Later Margaret Hodge, the same Margaret Hodge who called Corbyn an antisemitic racist to his face, condemned Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent nation state law as “despicable and abhorrent”. The room erupted in a thunderous ovation. To state the obvious: these are not the reactions of people who cannot stomach criticism of Israel.

    Where, then, lies the grievance with Corbyn? At that meeting on Sunday, Jewish Labourites were not opposing the party leader for championing the Palestinians. They were opposing him for, to take one example, his 2013 attack on a group of “Zionists” he’d encountered, where he tackled them not on their arguments but on ethnic grounds, noting that despite “having lived in this country for a very long time, they don’t understand English irony”.

    The implication of that remark is clear – and it has nothing to do with defending Palestinians. It’s that Corbyn sees Jews as fundamentally alien, foreigners who might live here a long time, might even be born here, but are still essentially other. People who will never be truly English.

    There’s nothing leftwing about that. On the contrary, it was the observation of a blue-blazered bigot at the 19th hole, the country house antisemite. As Josh Glancy observed in the New York Times: “This was the antisemitism of Virginia Woolf and Agatha Christie … more redolent of the genteel Shropshire manor house where Mr Corbyn was raised than the anticapitalist resistance movements where he forged his reputation.” (To those who doggedly try to pretend that Corbyn was only talking about “Zionists”, not Jews, why the reference to how long they had lived in the country? That’s a comment that only makes sense if applied to Jewish Zionists. No one would ever say it of a non-Jewish Zionist such as Tony Blair, for example – just as no one ever remarks on how long, say, Chris Evans has lived here. Perhaps because they’re deemed to come from the right, English stock.)

    For many, including some who’d long defended the Labour leader, that was a game changer. Similar was the mural of hooked-nose bankers, counting their money on the backs of the poor. The artist himself said he had depicted Jews, but when Corbyn heard it was to be removed his response was “Why?” He literally could not see anything wrong with it. Again, that’s nothing to do with opposing Israel. That’s just old school antisemitism. (It’s worth remembering that it was the mural row that triggered the unprecedented Jewish community demonstration in late March: the demand for IHRA came later.)

    Or take his support of Paul Eisen, shunned by the wider Palestinian solidarity movement once he’d proudly declared himself to be a Holocaust denier: Corbyn continued to attend his events. Or the Rev Stephen Sizer, who was banned from social media by the Church of England for spreading anti-Jewish conspiracy theories about 9/11: Corbyn had earlier leapt to his defence in a letter addressed to the bishop of Guildford.

    None of these episodes is about Corbyn being too devoted an advocate for the Palestinians. Most of those Labour party members who gathered on Sunday are themselves committed to Palestinian rights. What they object to is suggesting Jews are inherently alien, the ancient accusation of a Jewish conspiracy and Holocaust denial. And sadly Corbyn is tainted with all three.

    It means that even if the IHRA row is eventually resolved, there will still be much more work to do. There will be enforcing the code, taking credible disciplinary action and the like. But it will also require an understanding of why Jewish concerns have arisen. Not because Jews can’t take criticism of Israel – they dish it out themselves, morning, noon and night – but because they are troubled when they hear the oldest claims about them resurfacing once more, and coming from the party they used to call home.
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  3. #483
    Aexodus's Avatar Persuasion>Coercion
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    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    Quote Originally Posted by mongrel View Post
    Most British Jews aren't members of the Parliamentary Labour Party.



    A tiny selection, there are many more including your speciality, trojan OPs which start with a legimate current event but are then led on to off-topic discussion of Muslims / Mohammed or migrants.

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...hlight=muslims (my favourite btw)

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-Muslims/page4

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...erever-they-go

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ated-countries

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...m-Demographics
    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...llow-islamists

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...a-rape-culture
    Wow. That Italy one is quite something

    In fairness though, none of the anti muslim ones were made in the time I’ve been on TWC.
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  4. #484

    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    Quote Originally Posted by Aexodus View Post
    Wow. That Italy one is quite something

    In fairness though, none of the anti muslim ones were made in the time I’ve been on TWC.
    That's because, as mentioned, people now tend to use trojans, using a bona fide current event , then twisting the conversation to ensure that the message gets across regarding Muslims and migrants until the mods get fed up and closes the thread. Alternatively, the fuse is lit and every 'phobe type dives in and acquires infringements whilst the author of the OP watches unscathed.

    Here's some examples

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...Hamburg-attack.

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-for-221-years

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...Declared/page4


    I will concede however that this last few months has been relatively quiet on the Islamophobia/racism front.Not sure why that is, but it's welcome.
    Perhaps the idea of a universal brown caliphate doesn't wash when ISIS is being pasted and one can only wait so long before Eurabia by 2020 looks completely moronic.
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  5. #485
    Papay's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/05/o...tby/index.html


    Now Alexandria Cortez is smeared as an anti-semite because she wants to coopearate with Corbyn

  6. #486
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    Quote Originally Posted by Papay View Post
    https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/05/o...tby/index.html
    Democrats are tempted by Ocasio-Cortez for all the reasons the Labour left first fell for Corbyn... Ocasio-Cortez and her generation of New Democrats need to learn that you can't stand in solidarity with the international hard left -- and with Jewish Americans.
    "Need to learn". Haha...
    It's the so-called "New Antisemitism",the equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism.


    Neve Gordon | Ben Gurion University of the Negev - Academia.edu
    ---

    It's worth a read.

    Neve Gordon the ‘New Anti-Semitism’ -excerpts,

    Not long after the eruption of the Second Intifada in September 2000, I became active in a Jewish-Palestinian political movement called Ta’ayush, which conducts non-violent direct action against Israel’s military siege of the West Bank and Gaza.

    Its objective isn’t merely to protest against Israel’s violation of human rights but to join the Palestinian people in their struggle for self-determination....My pieces caught the eye of a professor from Haifa University, who wrote a series of articles accusing me first of being a traitor and a supporter of terrorism, then later a ‘Judenrat wannabe’ and an anti-Semite.

    The charges began to circulate on right-wing websites; I received death threats and scores of hate messages by email; administrators at my university received letters, some from big donors, demanding that I be fired.

    The logic of the ‘new anti-Semitism’ can be formulated as a syllogism: i) anti-Semitism is hatred of Jews; ii) to be Jewish is to be Zionist; iii) therefore anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic.

    The error has to do with the second proposition. The claims that Zionism is identical to Jewishness, or that a seamless equation can be made between the State of Israel and the Jewish people, are false. Many Jews are not Zionists.

    And Zionism has numerous traits that are in no way embedded in or characteristic of Jewishness, but rather emerged from nationalist and settler colonial ideologies over the last three hundred years. Criticism of Zionism or of Israel is not necessarily the product of an animus towards Jews; conversely, hatred of Jews does not necessarily entail anti-Zionism.Not only that, but it is possible to be both a Zionist and an anti-Semite.

    Evidence of this is supplied by the statements of white supremacists in the US and extreme right-wing politicians across Europe.

    Richard Spencer, a leading figure in the American alt-right, has no trouble characterising himself as a ‘white Zionist’ (‘As an Israeli citizen,’ he explained to his interviewer on Israel’s Channel 2 News, ‘who has a sense of nationhood and peoplehood, and the history and experience of the Jewish people, you should respect someone like me, who has analogous feelings about whites … I want us to have a secure homeland for us and ourselves. Just like you want a secure homeland in Israel’), while also believing that ‘Jews are vastly over-represented in what you could call “the establishment”.’

    Gianfranco Fini of the Italian National Alliance and Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom, have also professed their admiration of Zionism and the ‘white’ ethnocracy of the state of Israel, while on other occasions making their anti-Semitic views plain.

    Three things that draw these anti-Semites towards Israel are, first, the state’s ethnocratic character; second, an Islamophobia they assume Israel shares with them; and, third, Israel’s unapologetically harsh policies towards black migrants from Africa (in the latest of a series of measures designed to coerce Eritrean and Sudanese migrants to leave Israel, rules were introduced earlier this year requiring asylum seekers to deposit 20 percent of their earnings in a fund, to be repaid to them only if, and when, they leave the country)

    .... despite the clear distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, several governments, as well as think tanks and non-governmental organisations, now insist on the notion that anti-Zionism is necessarily a form of anti-Semitism. The definition adopted by the current UK government offers 11 examples of anti-Semitism, seven of which involve criticism of Israel – a concrete manifestation of the way in which the new understanding of anti-Semitism has become the accepted view.

    Any reproach directed towards the state of Israel now assumes the taint of anti-Semitism.

    The Israeli government needs the ‘new anti-Semitism’ to justify its actions and to protect it from international and domestic condemnation.

    Anti-Semitism is effectively weaponised, not only to stifle speech – ‘It does not matter if the accusation is true,’ Butler writes; its purpose is ‘to cause pain, to produce shame, and to reduce the accused to silence’ – but also to suppress a politics of liberation.

    The non-violent BDS campaign against Israel’s colonial project and rights abuses is labelled anti-Semitic not because the proponents of BDS hate Jews, but because it denounces the subjugation of the Palestinian people.... Conventionally, to call someone ‘anti-Semitic’ is to expose and condemn their racism; in the new case, the charge ‘anti-Semite’ is used to defend racism, and to sustain a regime that implements racist policies.

    We can oppose two injustices at once. We can condemn hate speech and crimes against Jews, like the ones witnessed recently in the US, or the anti-Semitism of far-right European political parties, at the same time as we denounce Israel’s colonial project and support Palestinians in their struggle for self-determination. But in order to carry out these tasks concurrently, the equation between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism must first be rejected.
    Ditto.
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    Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
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  7. #487
    Aexodus's Avatar Persuasion>Coercion
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    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    So Ilhan Omar saying AIPAC is bad is anti-semitic.

    Huh.

    She did say Israel was hypnotising the world though
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  8. #488
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    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    Quote Originally Posted by Aexodus View Post
    So Ilhan Omar saying AIPAC is bad is anti-semitic.

    Huh.

    She did say Israel was hypnotising the world though
    Yea, and the bipartisan kvetch-fest caused by saying that a political lobby uses money to influence the government indisputably proves that second statement correct. If this doesn't convince you that the anti-semitism card is a just a political gimmick used to shut down any criticism of israel, no matter how valid, then hypnotism is one of the only logical explanations.

  9. #489
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    I hope I'm not being unduly harsh-therefore being unfair in my criticism of Israeli policy. In fact, the anti semitic card is a political weapon to silence criticism.
    I have to say that I am/we are proud of our Jews and Jewish culture. Portugal - European Jewish Congress
    MarceloS.R., President of the Portuguese Republic.
    It is never too much to express a word of gratitude to this inheritance, which enriched us in the past and which played an important role in shaping our identity. We must recognize it and cherish it, because we know how much we lost for not doing it in the past. As mentioned by Antero de Quental, the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal was a "national calamity"
    The introduction to the catalog for a Portuguese museum exhibition, Signs of Judaism in Portugal says,
    Today the Portuguese accept, with a relaxed shrug of the shoulders and a wry smile, that somewhere along the line, "we all have a drop of Jewish blood running in our veins"
    In fact, in the 15th century, circa 20% of the Portuguese population was Jewish, so we always say that every Portuguese may have a Jewish origin. Our Jewish communities have played crucial roles in Portuguese history and Discoveries.
    Thousands of descendants of Sephardic Jews acquired the Portuguese nationality in the last years. Thousands in queue for Jewish Portuguese citizenship - The Jewish
    I’m still very excited about getting Portuguese nationality,” says Yigal, who reads news about Portugal every day on the Internet and who has visited the country many times over the last few years."I even went back again just three weeks ago, for Yom Kippur, to pray together with the Porto community.“The community and synagogue are amazing. I have visited many Sephardic synagogues but, in my view, this is the best".
    Portugal, the new promised land? Portugal, the new promised land? Notícias Magazine
    'We want a Jewish presence in Portugal' - Israel National News

    As you can see...
    Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
    Charles Péguy

    Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
    Thomas Piketty

  10. #490
    swabian's Avatar igni ferroque
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    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    in the 15th century, circa 20% of the Portuguese population was Jewish
    Complete nonsense. Most of the jewish population was expelled from Spain and Portugal during the 15th century. If it would have been one fifth of the population, Portugal wouldn't have been able to build up her empire (and would have suffered a massive crisis on top of that) and the neighbouring countries (i think a large portion of them fled to Amsterdam alone) wouldn't have been able to absorb the Jews from the Iberian peninsula.

  11. #491
    Aexodus's Avatar Persuasion>Coercion
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    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    I hope I'm not being unduly harsh-therefore being unfair in my criticism of Israeli policy. In fact, the anti semitic card is a political weapon to silence criticism.
    I have to say that I am/we are proud of our Jews and Jewish culture. Portugal - European Jewish Congress
    MarceloS.R., President of the Portuguese Republic.

    The introduction to the catalog for a Portuguese museum exhibition, Signs of Judaism in Portugal says,

    In fact, in the 15th century, circa 20% of the Portuguese population was Jewish, so we always say that every Portuguese may have a Jewish origin. Our Jewish communities have played crucial roles in Portuguese history and Discoveries.
    Thousands of descendants of Sephardic Jews acquired the Portuguese nationality in the last years. Thousands in queue for Jewish Portuguese citizenship - The Jewish

    Portugal, the new promised land? Portugal, the new promised land? Notícias Magazine
    'We want a Jewish presence in Portugal' - Israel National News

    As you can see...
    Uh

    Why are you covering for an accusation that hasn’t been made.
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  12. #492
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    Quote Originally Posted by Aexodus View Post
    Uh Why are you covering for an accusation that hasn’t been made.
    Who knows. Do you see what I am saying? anti-zionism is not anti-semitism. According to the Israeli government, anti-Zionism is recognized "the new anti-Semitism".
    "new" is a funny adjective.
    Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
    Charles Péguy

    Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
    Thomas Piketty

  13. #493
    swabian's Avatar igni ferroque
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    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    Anti-zionism is almost necessarily antisemitism. Of course, Israel can be criticized for her actions, but antizionism targets the very concept of Jews migrating to Israel into formerly 'Palestinian' lands and is therefore against the existence of Israel and the presence of Jews there. It eludes me how this cannot be, at least in part, antisemitic.
    Last edited by swabian; February 14, 2019 at 04:45 PM.

  14. #494
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    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    Antipalestinism is also necessarily antisemitic, because it targets the very concept of semitic arabs in former Palestine staying there and not making room for jewish colonists.

  15. #495
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    Default Re: Jeremy Corbyn 'figurehead for anti-semitism'

    No, this Netanyahu row won't destroy Corbyn – it will only make him more stronger
    Richard Seymour.

    We are approaching year four of the war on Jeremy Corbyn, and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has joined the fray. In an intervention for which Corbyn’s enemies won’t thank him, Netanyahu accuses Corbyn of laying a wreath at the graves of terrorists, and of comparing Israel to Nazis.

    This is a blunder. The media was picking over the conflicting accounts of what Corbyn was doing at a Tunisian government-organised conference, which included a memorial for those killed in a widely condemned 1985 Israeli air strike. It was alleged Corbyn laid a wreath at the grave of a PLO leader who helped plan the killing of Israeli athletes forty six years ago. Along comes Netanyahu, a person very recently involved in mass killing, to lead the charge.

    And he confused his lines. It was not Corbyn who compared Israel to the Nazis. That was Hajo Meier, a Holocaust survivor reflecting on his own experiences on Holocaust Memorial Day. Netanyahu, who once claimed that Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews but was goaded into it by Palestinians, is not in a good position to argue with Holocaust survivors.

    The Israeli PM is fluffing an attack that was unlikely to work anyway. Since he took the leadership of the Labour Party, the line has been that he’s an anti-British weirdo who doesn’t bow to the Queen or sing the national anthem, and – most egregiously – is mates with terrorists. The extraordinary list of allegations might even destroy another politician merely by being repeated so often. But, unlike Netanyahu’s blunderbuss rhetoric, they have usually relied on a degree of productive ambiguity.

    Consider the old IRA allegations. The word that most frequently came up in this offensive, which reached boiling point during last year’s election campaign, is “links”. It was sufficient to allege that the Sinn Fein leaders he met were in the IRA, maybe throw in the word “treason”, and let imagination do the rest of the work. The Sun ran a front page after the Manchester Arena bombing saying Corbyn had “Blood on His Hands”. The story, nothing to do with Manchester, rehashed the IRA allegations spiced up with thin testimony from a notoriously dodgy ex-IRA informant.

    It didn’t work. Nor did outright lies. The attempt to incriminate Corbyn as a communist spy was a disaster. No amount of equivocation – “the questions have been asked, the questions need to be answered” – could save Brexit minister Steve Baker from a public roasting by the big beast of Tory broadcasters, Andrew Neil.

    The attacks over allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party are more effective because they strike at the anti-racist conscience of the left, but don’t alter the underlying situation. Labour still hovers around forty per cent in most polls.
    They can smear Corbyn, but so far they can’t change the fact that millions of people want what Corbyn’s Labour, alone, is offering.
    Why did nothing work? Why won’t the latest attack work? For Corbyn’s core supporters, his record has never been a drawback. Whether opposing apartheid, campaigning against Pinochet, defending Irish republicans, or supporting a Palestinian state, his alliance with the oppressed is one of his most attractive qualities. He has an activist record unmatched by any other politician. He doesn’t just talk: he means it.
    Not all peace processes work. The Oslo Accords failed, as Israeli settlements expanded. Nonetheless, we saw PLO leader Yasser Arafat, who waged a violent struggle against Israeli occupation, sitting down with the US president and visiting Downing Street.

    When he died, a long list of dignitaries showed up for his funeral, including the British foreign secretary. Most politicians now claim to agree with the principle of “land for peace”, and a Palestinian state. And Israel’s brutal actions in the West Bank, Lebanon and Gaza, have tilted opinion sharply against it.

    And that’s why Netanyahu is in the worst possible position to lead this attack. He condemns Corbyn for laying a wreath. In return Corbyn calmly points out that Netanyahu has just murdered over a hundred unarmed protesters while passing racist legislation that even some of his long-standing supporters dislike.

    Who’s going to win that one? Corbyn, hands down
    Ditto.
    Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
    Charles Péguy

    Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
    Thomas Piketty

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