not sure that local elections in mid Parliament have any relevance - the ruling party always get decimated.
We need to sort out exactly what anti semitism means Leo. Is it a racial expression, or a religious one, or is it about a nation ? If I criticize the government of Nigeria, is it a racist statement ? There is no reason why Israel should be the only country on this planet which is immune to criticism simply because people are afraid of being called anti Semitic. If it is used as an ethnic concept then the Palestinian Arabs are also Semites - so is the Israeli state anti Semitic, is Islamophobia anti Semitic ? Were Karl Marx and Rosa Luxemburg (both ethnically Jewish) anti semitic, because they were against the religion - and both denounced it ? The problem is that there are so many possible ways of being called anti Semitic.
I do not think it is too complicated. It is not the nation. It is not racial as not all semites are Jewishas you say. It is religious. You are knocking down a straw man. It has already been agreed that Israel and anti-semitism are not hand in hand. Throughout the last two thousand years - long before the sate of Israel - Jews were persecuted.
The problem lies with the fact that both Christians and Moslems were, in the past, forbidden from living from interest and so money lending became a Jewish profession, also because they were barred from many other professions. On the other hand, people of Jewish descent have had a proportionally high representaion in the development of Socialism. Israel has a socialist past, and even today has a much larger percentage of state ownership than you would normally find in the West. How many Socialists learned their trade on Kibbutz's of the past ? We need to reconnect the Jewish-Socialist tradition. We also need to face up to the uncomfortable historical fact that some Socialists of the past have been all to happy to bring 'Class War', and 'Race War' together when it was convenient to do so. In fact both Marx and Engels were rabid racists, when it was clear to them that an ethnic group were not capable of developing a proletarian consciousness. What we now know as the holocaust was practically advocated by Engels. Which raises lots of questions about our definitions of 'left wing' and 'right wing'.
I know why Jews became moneylenders. Charging interest was considered dirty and so people who did it were shunned - and as Jews were the only ones technically allowed to do it they got the blame. Not their fault but simply a fact. It helped cement hatred of Jews - the people and religion.
I do not think that Corbyn would differentiate between people according to either their ethnic or their religious origins Leo. His brand of socialism does not allow for hierarchies, or for the idea that one group of people are 'better' than another. We need clear dividing lines as to what is anti Semitic and what isn't - because there is no other grouping with such a clear association of race=religion=nation, and we do not want these themes to be constantly running into each other. As an aside Leo, you were wrong in your last text in labelling the Soviet Union vs. Nazi Germany as two ends of the spectrum - the subsequent left wing intelligencia has successfully cast Nazi Germany as an example of the extreme right, but its origins were not so, they didn't use the word 'Socialist' to describe their movement purely because it sounded good.
Nobody is talking about any people being "better" than another. Racism, homophobia, sexism, anti-semitism are simply ignorant prejudice.
Taking 'nation' out of the equation is easy Leo, but 'race' ? This implies that anti semitism is not racism, but rather religious bigotry. By that token Hitler was not an anti semite because his definition of them was a racial one - unbelievably an ethnic German could have converted to Judaism and not be persecuted for it - this sounds hard to believe, but it was true. What we term as 'left wing' and 'right wing' have changed through time. Originally the left would have been the rising bourgiosie as against the ruling landed classes and the monarchy. In later days being left wing implied collective ownership of the means of production - nothing more, nothing less - no mention of multi culti whatsoever. After World War 2, in response to immigration, and to distance itself from the Nazis, the term left wing began to take on it's present connotations. If anti semitism has only a religious background, then why does it use the expression 'Semite' which is an ethnic term and not a religious one ?
Why then are only Jews the subject of anti-semitism? Half the region and more is semitic. The slogans and daubings on the walls in Germany targeted "Jude" not semites. It was Jews. Nobody in German who was not a Jew would have been brave or foolish enough to convert to judaism so your comment is a moot point. I am bored with the left- right debate - as with the strict definition of communism. The man on the Clapham omnibus knows what he understands by the terms and that is good enough for me if not a strict legal definition.
Who is 'The man on the Clapham omnibus' Leo ? The point is with regard to Nazi Germany, the term Semite was not really in use in Central Europe at that time, whereas Germany had about 6 million Jews living there - there were no other Semites there. The aspect of 'Jewishness' in Germany was decided by the ethnic origins of the mother, and was something which could not be escaped from - converting to Christianity or to Atheism would not have helped them. So it was essentially used as a racial, biological expression.
In bygone centuries maybe, but not in Nazi Germany. The poison of the Nazis was biological - Hitler did not give a monkeys about religion, in actual fact, on purely theological grounds, he despised Catholicism as much as Judaism. The main targets of the Nazi racial theory were the Gypsies, the Jews and the Slavs - all as ethnic groups. But we are digressing horribly here Leo - we agree that Corbyn is not anti semitic (whatever we agree that term as meaning). But we would need to use the term more specifically if hurling this charge at others in the Labour Party. We agree that criticism of Israel is not anti semitic in nature - can you give examples of where party members have gone further than this ?
As a Labour Party member, I have not heard anything anti-Judaism or anti-Jew - not slightest thing. There is a lot of very severe criticism of Israeli ‘policy’. To suggest those who criticise Israel are necessarily anti-Judaism or anti-Jew is deliberate misdirection from the criticism. Criticism of Israel is not limited to Labour members either. Are the Liberals seen as anti-Judaism? Within my local branch in North Hertfordshire, Corbyn is very popular.
