I mean, the history of that phrase is not one of exterminationist intent. "Palestine will be free / From the river to the sea" specifically is considered to come from the refusal to accept the partition of the land and the creation of the separate states - not a claim about exterminating Jewish people in the land at all.
History of the phrase is irrelevant - its what it has come to mean that counts.
I mean if the phrase has a continual usage not related to exterminationist views, which it has, I think it is quite relevant when making the claim that it would be "intellectually dishonest to claim [it] means anything other than the mass killing of Jews". Again, because I also know many Jewish people happy to chant it who understand it to mean no such thing!
"Many". Those are very much outliers.
It does not make their views less valid.
And indeed only viewing the "right" kinds of Jewish people as being "real" Jews is a big problem (especially in the Labour party):
Labour had a genuine problem with anti-semitism under Corbyn. For a time I even had a local Labour councillor (Hightown, Luton) who was an admirer of Hitler (and former Anti-Racism Officer at Warwick University). People like that thought Labour was their home.
Were there some anti-Semitic Labour party members? Yes. Was it institutionally racist - perhaps. Is throwing out left wing Jewish people who criticise Israel because that is apparently anti-Semitic actually sincere policing of anti-Semitism? No.
I would also argue all political parties have anti-Semites in, and bigots of other kinds, and that British culture is inherently anti-Semitic. I would also point to the many people who have noted that Conservative anti-Muslim prejudices are not treated with any seriousness, to the point where ex Tory ministers and members of the EHRC have mentioned it - with no mainstream acceptance that it is an issue or that Islamophobia is bad.
I would disagree absolutely with the assertion that British culture is inherently anti-Semitic in either the specific (Jewish) or general (including Arabic and other ME cultures) definitions. And having travelled very extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East for the last 35 years it is always a relief to come back to a country where overt anti-Jewish or anti-Arabic sentiment is so rare and so quickly condemned.
Anit-Semitic tropes are still pretty common at low levels amongst the British public. I wouldn't say there are many "hard-core" anti-Semites (holocaust denial, raging hatred of Jews, etc.) but the tropey stuff (Jewish people are greedy, insular, dual loyalty) alongside how much general conspiracism ends up leading to anti-Semitic views.
Who are you talking to for goodness sake? This does not match my experience of British life.
There IS a low level anti-Semitism in British society. Fortunately, nearly all of the time it remains exactly that - a quiet background murmur of tiny slurs, about them being clannish, cunning and wealthy. it's not just Britain. You can find it in almost every western society, if not all around the world
But other groups experience the same - blacks, Muslims, rich whites, poor whites (chavs!), gays, the English in Scotland, it is human nature
What makes anti-Semitism troubling amongst these many prejudices is that in certain groups it (uniquely?) metamorphosises into a potentially violent hatred - on the far right, the Corbynite left, and within radical Islam
For me the most shocking act of antisemitism from a current/past party leader during my lifetime wasn't anything Corbyn said but when Harold MacMillan said about Thatcher appointing so many Jews to her cabinet was
'The thing about Margaret’s Cabinet is that it includes more Old Estonians than it does Old Etonians.'
I am generally a fan of SuperMac but eesh.
Is that anti-Semitic or just clever wordplay expressing a truth? It can be viewed either way. Tricky one
Corbyn's shite is much worse. The mural? Really? He didn't notice? What a load of bollocks
I genuinely think Corbyn is too stupid to be antisemitic.
So this is something I find interesting - I went to one of the centrist Labour think tanks events where they were discussing Labour post Corbyn and how to deal with anti-Semitism in the party and one of the discussion points I found troubling (which I think has also been said publicly by Labour MPs) was the idea that some criticisms of capitalism were essentially anti-Semitic.
What they tried to argue there (which I strongly disagree with) is that any idea that "rich people control the world" is a form of "Jewish people control the world" which in my mind ignores a very clear criticism of capitalism and the world we live in - that of the "class interests" of the wealthy. This idea boils down to the fact that there doesn't have to be a smoky backroom where rich people make all the real decisions, or a "cabal" of Jewish people pulling the strings, but that people who get into elite positions of power will automatically already have the "correct" ideology for serving power because that is what is rewarded in our society. (This idea is also expressed by Chomsky in an interview I cba to look for now).
This is the hole I think Corbyn falls in - I think he clearly stands on the "class interest" side of this divide, but some things (like that mural) stood on the other side. I think you could naively view that mural as a general anti-elitist sentiment; I also think someone who is leader of the Labour Party should not be naïve in that way. It is noticeable that even Bernie Sanders was accused of anti-Semitism for many of the main reasons Corbyn was - his defence of Palestinians, his rhetoric against the wealthy elites and the 1% - but that this didn't stick a) because he didn't win the nomination and therefore it was no longer useful to propagate and b) his Jewish heritage obviously made it a lot more difficult to stick.
The problem with Corbyn was always the one we've seen with certain people over the past few days. A complete failure to draw distinctions between the overall Palestinian cause, and people who champion it who are violent, sometimes genocidal antisemites. Pretty much all the dreadful messes Corbyn got himself into - famously calling Hamas 'friends' and 'a force for social justice' - but also the Wreath, Stephen Sizer, Dyab Abou JahJah, Paul Eisen, Williamson, and so on - are of this type. Where he embraced and promoted someone or something that was extremely unpleasant because it came wrapped in a Palestinian flag - and then compounded the error by assuming any and all criticism of them and him was in bad faith, and only apologising, if at all, when it was dragged kicking and screaming about it. Usually calling people objecting to things he had literally been filmed or recorded doing "smears". That's why it became widely thought he was antisemitic. At first, you'll note there were just questions raised about why he'd done x or y - Jonathan Freedland's famous column in 2015 took pains not to say he was an antisemite, just blind to it and a bit thick. Eventually, Freedland and lots of others (including the majority of British Jews, according to polling) concluded he was antisemitic, as no one could repeatedly be that insensitive and blind to what they were endorsing time and time again, without functionally being regarded as that. This week, sadly we've seen a similar process where too many are excusing awful antisemitic behaviour because the Israeli government not being pleasant serves as some kind of 'Get Out of Jail Free' card for those spouting tropes and views that wouldn't look out of place in 1930s Germany or 19th Century Russia.
Angry people are angry that a pro-Palestine protest has set up shop next to the Cenotaph. A Tory MP blamed Westminster Council for approving it, but the council denies it, as do the police. As an aside, some are also annoyed that the police are storing their kit on the Cenotaph.
On the face of it, storing your kit directly on the cenotaph does seem more disrespectful than setting up next to it. But then it seems the angry MPs are also saying that any pro-Palestinian protests (as opposed to just pro-Hamas ones) should be made illegal so I would suggest he can probably just go fuck himself.
Everyone has the right to peaceful assembly and protest. It is an absolute core of our approach to citizenship. That isn't to say that I approve of every protest - that would be ridiculous.
So if the PSC people want to go and march, they should be allowed. The balance to tread is when their banners and chants are genocidal - do we send the police in to remove such things? You can't stand in the street demanding the murder of someone else in the street - why should you be able to do so for the murder of someone elsewhere?
S.1 of the Terrorism Act 2006 says hello.
Quite a few of the statements being made on the streets of London and other cities over the last few days would appear to be in breach of this provision.
Lots of talk about hate crimes and, yet, shouting hate at Jews is somehow ok. Well, not to me it isn't and not I hope to lots of other people. If we're going to have such crimes then we apply them properly to everybody not just to a select few who seem to think they should have a free pass to spew hate at others while claiming they are the victims if anyone dares point out what they're doing.
A lot of that depends on whether you think that verbally attacking Israel is the same as verbally attacking Jews.
I don't.
I think Israel under its current administration is the epitome of strong arm bullying and their treatment of Palestinians is utterly indefensible. That has abosolutely nothing to doing with them being Jewish and everything to do with them currenlty being ruled by a bunch of ultra right wing religious nutters.
I think people should have the right to say this and protest about it.
Indeed, I would go further and argue that conflating Jewish people and Jewishness with Israelis or the state of Israel is in and of itself anti-Semitic. Not all Jewish people are Zionists or pro Israel - lots of the criticism of Israel comes from Jewish organisations. To make criticism of Israel a marker of anti-Semitism is ludicrous.
It is complicated by the fact though that many, probably most, Jewish people have some sort of relationship with the state of Israel. Often as simple of family ties or friends who live there, but also just 'having a view', which if you're Jewish you are generally kind of expected to have vs the way that you wouldn't have a view on, say, Uruguay or Liberia.
Which is to say that criticism of Israel, which is often of the 'river to the sea' saying-without-saying kind, can still feel personal to a Jewish person, even one who is deeply critical of the Israeli government and its actions.
As a matter of record Israel is a Jewish state (as per UN 181). So it appears that while it is of course legitimate and necessary to criticise any state's actions if you disagree with them, blah, blah, in criticising Israel people are also criticising (the) Jewish people.
So any criticism of Israel is also criticism of Jews? Think you’ve disappeared up your own reductive butthole there.
Well by definition that is the case. Israel is a Jewish state. And criticism of Jews is perfectly legitimate.
That is a long way from believing that Israel doesn't have a right to exist, for example. Or from being prejudiced against Israel/Jews for being Israel/Jews.
Israel doesn't have a right to exist. It has lots of rights including a right to self-defence, but not a right to existence. States do not have a right to existence. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union all ceased to exist without their rights being violated.
Not everyone who uses this term is being sneaky intentionally but I think the reason someone invented this weird, slightly philosophical term is because they're trying to conflate "a country has the right to not be invaded" which is uncontroversial with "there must be a majority Jewish state with Judaism as its official religion" which is controversial.
Perhaps when they say "right to exist" they use it as shorthand for "we believe in the validity of UN 181". It is of course perfectly understandable that people think that UN 181 is controversial and that there should never have been a Jewish State established in the Middle East.
Since 1967 it has been Israel who apaprenty do not believe in the validity of UN 181 since they have refused to accept one half of it. They are happy to have the Jewish state within Palestine but unwilling to accept the Arab state alongside it. You continually refer to UN 181 as if it only refers to a Jewish state and Israel is in compliance. It does not and Israel is not.
There is some truth in that. I am cherry picking.
1947: UN 181 1948: Establishment of the state of Israel Also 1948: Invasion of Israel by Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Syria.
Where Israel has consistently gone wrong (and is why it is being criticised today for current events) is that it fails to realise that that wars of aggression or militant action against it change in no way whatsoever much of the international community's views (as Israel sees it) about how it should behave.
So in 1948, when they realised they were actually winning the war, and not being annihilated they thought "fuck it" and took over Arab villages as an act of war. In 1967 and 1973 when they realised they were actually winning the war, and not being annihilated, they occupied enemy land as an act of war. And in 2023, when they were attacked, they took the fight to the enemy.
The nascent Israel realised they could do better than the 1947 proposal with military successes in early 1948, before the attacks by Egypt, Jordan etc. They were taking over, i.e. ethnically cleansing/massacring, Arab villages before then (and the nascent Palestinian forces also carried out massacres of Jews).
And why were there "military successes".
I am absolutely saying that on account of such successes they decided to clear out those villages. I'm not disputing that it happened, I am saying it occurred during the war and that the war was launched by the Arab world on the day that Israel declared independence.
I was making a point about dates. There was already a war going on that day. Fighting between Jewish and Palestinian forces had been going on in earnest since November 1947, months before the full scale invasion by Arab countries in mid 48.
Also, the motivations of the Arab countries involved were mixed. Jordan, who brought the most significant military force, wanted to annex the West Bank and was happy to leave Israel within the 1947 proposed borders, whereas other Arab countries wanted to create a unitary (majority Arab-speaking) Palestinian state
Not that the vast majority of Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians etc. have any responsibility for the actions of their ancestors, taken before they were born (or were only children).
That is a strange comment when the whole problem in the Middle East centres around exactly the same issues that were relevant 70 years ago. Israel's place in the region.
I am aware that I’m talking about history. Too many people talk about history. There are enough wrongs committed in the past to keep resentments burning for centuries to come. The path to peace has to include acknowledging the history, but deciding to leave it in the past. For example, Sinn Fein supported terrorist acts, but we agree to put that in the past to build peace for the future.
We could spend hours, days, months, talking about the bad things done in the past by/in Israel/Palestine and the surrounding territories. But we can’t achieve peace unless we recognise that the children aren’t responsible for the sins of their parents.
I mean, the history of that phrase is not one of exterminationist intent. "Palestine will be free / From the river to the sea" specifically is considered to come from the refusal to accept the partition of the land and the creation of the separate states - not a claim about exterminating Jewish people in the land at all.
History of the phrase is irrelevant - its what it has come to mean that counts.
I mean if the phrase has a continual usage not related to exterminationist views, which it has, I think it is quite relevant when making the claim that it would be "intellectually dishonest to claim [it] means anything other than the mass killing of Jews". Again, because I also know many Jewish people happy to chant it who understand it to mean no such thing!
"Many". Those are very much outliers.
It does not make their views less valid.
And indeed only viewing the "right" kinds of Jewish people as being "real" Jews is a big problem (especially in the Labour party):
Labour had a genuine problem with anti-semitism under Corbyn. For a time I even had a local Labour councillor (Hightown, Luton) who was an admirer of Hitler (and former Anti-Racism Officer at Warwick University). People like that thought Labour was their home.
Were there some anti-Semitic Labour party members? Yes. Was it institutionally racist - perhaps. Is throwing out left wing Jewish people who criticise Israel because that is apparently anti-Semitic actually sincere policing of anti-Semitism? No.
I would also argue all political parties have anti-Semites in, and bigots of other kinds, and that British culture is inherently anti-Semitic. I would also point to the many people who have noted that Conservative anti-Muslim prejudices are not treated with any seriousness, to the point where ex Tory ministers and members of the EHRC have mentioned it - with no mainstream acceptance that it is an issue or that Islamophobia is bad.
I would disagree absolutely with the assertion that British culture is inherently anti-Semitic in either the specific (Jewish) or general (including Arabic and other ME cultures) definitions. And having travelled very extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East for the last 35 years it is always a relief to come back to a country where overt anti-Jewish or anti-Arabic sentiment is so rare and so quickly condemned.
Anit-Semitic tropes are still pretty common at low levels amongst the British public. I wouldn't say there are many "hard-core" anti-Semites (holocaust denial, raging hatred of Jews, etc.) but the tropey stuff (Jewish people are greedy, insular, dual loyalty) alongside how much general conspiracism ends up leading to anti-Semitic views.
Who are you talking to for goodness sake? This does not match my experience of British life.
There IS a low level anti-Semitism in British society. Fortunately, nearly all of the time it remains exactly that - a quiet background murmur of tiny slurs, about them being clannish, cunning and wealthy. it's not just Britain. You can find it in almost every western society, if not all around the world
But other groups experience the same - blacks, Muslims, rich whites, poor whites (chavs!), gays, the English in Scotland, it is human nature
What makes anti-Semitism troubling amongst these many prejudices is that in certain groups it (uniquely?) metamorphosises into a potentially violent hatred - on the far right, the Corbynite left, and within radical Islam
For me the most shocking act of antisemitism from a current/past party leader during my lifetime wasn't anything Corbyn said but when Harold MacMillan said about Thatcher appointing so many Jews to her cabinet was
'The thing about Margaret’s Cabinet is that it includes more Old Estonians than it does Old Etonians.'
I am generally a fan of SuperMac but eesh.
Is that anti-Semitic or just clever wordplay expressing a truth? It can be viewed either way. Tricky one
Corbyn's shite is much worse. The mural? Really? He didn't notice? What a load of bollocks
A lot of pre-war novels can make you wince a bit, when you read stuff about Jews.
“The room was full of Jews, of the wrong sort.”
“He could not endure his girl marrying this swarthy son of Judah, whose father was likely selling matchsticks in Whitechapel.”
“Mark my words. Behind every conspiracy, there’s a little white-faced Jew, with an eye like a rattlesnake.”
Yes. And of course that famous poem by T S Eliot
From:
Burbank With A Baedeker Bleistein With A Cigar
A lustreless protrusive eye Stares from the protozoic slime At a perspective of Canaletto. The smoky candle end of time
Declines. On the Rialto once. The rats are underneath the piles. The jew is underneath the lot
I find much by Evelyn Waugh very funny, but he included some awful slurs (mainly directed at blacks).
It's interesting to speculate how this will pan out in future, ie what is it that we casually think and do now, which our descendants will find bewilderingly wrong? Because this moral evolution always happens
I suspect our treatment of animals will come under scrutiny. From keeping pets to factory farming
But maybe that's fairly obvious. What else?
Good question. I'd suggest where the wokists lead the rest of us follow but I know you won't want to hear that.
But, my god, the massive shift in public opinion over my lifetime (63 years) in the areas of diversity and inclusion, race, homosexuality, sexism, the treatment of animals, class prejudice, and - particularly noticeable to me - disability...
That massive shift has all been towards a kinder, gentler, more accepting society.
(And yes I know there are plenty of challenges still left, plenty of areas of improvement, areas of the world not seeing these benefits, and risks that we in the West could through this freedom away. But on the long view there has been enormous progress - no reason why it cannot continue if we will it.)
I’m not at all convinced that society is kinder than in 1960.
The same old cruelties, same old scandals, same old attitudes, come up again and again, even if they are repackaged in different form.
I disagree. I think society has become a lot kinder in many ways. I can't compare it to 1960 because I wasn't alive then but I can compare it to the early 1980s at primary school where minority kids were bullied relentlessly and the early 1990s at secondary school where gay kids were bullied relentlessly. A lot more bullying too for having the 'wrong' clothes etc than happens now, based on my kids' experiences.
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
I still don't get why more homes are not built with solar panels as standard from the start. Economies of scale would, I assume, make it cheaper, and who is going to otice an extra few grand in the buying price if you are already spending £200K+.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
I mean, because that would increase the construction price and developers dislike having to spend money and the Tories have, since Thatcher really, been in the role of mediating the interests of developers and home owners.
I'll be interested in the details of this Labour plan for modern garden cities. If the idea is just send it out to developers on current specs, it is going to be awful - huge developments of new builds that will last a decade if we're lucky. If Labour do it seriously and put proper specs on things - solar, insulation, maybe even limit the average car per home design and aim to have things build in line with the idea of walkable cities - then it could be great.
I'm not sure that people understand just how wretched new builds tend to be. It isn't universal - some are decent. But for so many (myself included) a new build home quickly shows just how cheaply it was thrown together. My former estate of 1,100 new homes from three builders had serious issues on all house designs from all three builders. So it didn;'t matter what you bought or from whom, it was crap.
In our case we had a house that audibly creaked in windy weather, with cracking plaster on various walls and as we discovered several years after buying it, empty cavity walls where Barratts had "forgotten" to install insulation. On every house they built. To say nothing about the garden made from rubble etc etc etc.
House prices have gone bonkers, yet the housebuilders construct the cheapest possible crap. This is the british problem in full effect - crap product at top money.
In Victorian/Edwardian times, builders built what they could get away with, as well.
The limiting factor was people having choice and checking quality. The houses that have survived from that period were the good ones. Plenty of references from that period of new houses being unsold as shoddy, ugly etc. - they were often knocked down, having never been occupied.
Today we have the problem that any crap sells. There is massive under
I mean, the history of that phrase is not one of exterminationist intent. "Palestine will be free / From the river to the sea" specifically is considered to come from the refusal to accept the partition of the land and the creation of the separate states - not a claim about exterminating Jewish people in the land at all.
History of the phrase is irrelevant - its what it has come to mean that counts.
I mean if the phrase has a continual usage not related to exterminationist views, which it has, I think it is quite relevant when making the claim that it would be "intellectually dishonest to claim [it] means anything other than the mass killing of Jews". Again, because I also know many Jewish people happy to chant it who understand it to mean no such thing!
"Many". Those are very much outliers.
It does not make their views less valid.
And indeed only viewing the "right" kinds of Jewish people as being "real" Jews is a big problem (especially in the Labour party):
Labour had a genuine problem with anti-semitism under Corbyn. For a time I even had a local Labour councillor (Hightown, Luton) who was an admirer of Hitler (and former Anti-Racism Officer at Warwick University). People like that thought Labour was their home.
Were there some anti-Semitic Labour party members? Yes. Was it institutionally racist - perhaps. Is throwing out left wing Jewish people who criticise Israel because that is apparently anti-Semitic actually sincere policing of anti-Semitism? No.
I would also argue all political parties have anti-Semites in, and bigots of other kinds, and that British culture is inherently anti-Semitic. I would also point to the many people who have noted that Conservative anti-Muslim prejudices are not treated with any seriousness, to the point where ex Tory ministers and members of the EHRC have mentioned it - with no mainstream acceptance that it is an issue or that Islamophobia is bad.
I would disagree absolutely with the assertion that British culture is inherently anti-Semitic in either the specific (Jewish) or general (including Arabic and other ME cultures) definitions. And having travelled very extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East for the last 35 years it is always a relief to come back to a country where overt anti-Jewish or anti-Arabic sentiment is so rare and so quickly condemned.
Anit-Semitic tropes are still pretty common at low levels amongst the British public. I wouldn't say there are many "hard-core" anti-Semites (holocaust denial, raging hatred of Jews, etc.) but the tropey stuff (Jewish people are greedy, insular, dual loyalty) alongside how much general conspiracism ends up leading to anti-Semitic views.
Who are you talking to for goodness sake? This does not match my experience of British life.
There IS a low level anti-Semitism in British society. Fortunately, nearly all of the time it remains exactly that - a quiet background murmur of tiny slurs, about them being clannish, cunning and wealthy. it's not just Britain. You can find it in almost every western society, if not all around the world
But other groups experience the same - blacks, Muslims, rich whites, poor whites (chavs!), gays, the English in Scotland, it is human nature
What makes anti-Semitism troubling amongst these many prejudices is that in certain groups it (uniquely?) metamorphosises into a potentially violent hatred - on the far right, the Corbynite left, and within radical Islam
For me the most shocking act of antisemitism from a current/past party leader during my lifetime wasn't anything Corbyn said but when Harold MacMillan said about Thatcher appointing so many Jews to her cabinet was
'The thing about Margaret’s Cabinet is that it includes more Old Estonians than it does Old Etonians.'
I am generally a fan of SuperMac but eesh.
Is that anti-Semitic or just clever wordplay expressing a truth? It can be viewed either way. Tricky one
Corbyn's shite is much worse. The mural? Really? He didn't notice? What a load of bollocks
I genuinely think Corbyn is too stupid to be antisemitic.
So this is something I find interesting - I went to one of the centrist Labour think tanks events where they were discussing Labour post Corbyn and how to deal with anti-Semitism in the party and one of the discussion points I found troubling (which I think has also been said publicly by Labour MPs) was the idea that some criticisms of capitalism were essentially anti-Semitic.
What they tried to argue there (which I strongly disagree with) is that any idea that "rich people control the world" is a form of "Jewish people control the world" which in my mind ignores a very clear criticism of capitalism and the world we live in - that of the "class interests" of the wealthy. This idea boils down to the fact that there doesn't have to be a smoky backroom where rich people make all the real decisions, or a "cabal" of Jewish people pulling the strings, but that people who get into elite positions of power will automatically already have the "correct" ideology for serving power because that is what is rewarded in our society. (This idea is also expressed by Chomsky in an interview I cba to look for now).
This is the hole I think Corbyn falls in - I think he clearly stands on the "class interest" side of this divide, but some things (like that mural) stood on the other side. I think you could naively view that mural as a general anti-elitist sentiment; I also think someone who is leader of the Labour Party should not be naïve in that way. It is noticeable that even Bernie Sanders was accused of anti-Semitism for many of the main reasons Corbyn was - his defence of Palestinians, his rhetoric against the wealthy elites and the 1% - but that this didn't stick a) because he didn't win the nomination and therefore it was no longer useful to propagate and b) his Jewish heritage obviously made it a lot more difficult to stick.
The problem with Corbyn was always the one we've seen with certain people over the past few days. A complete failure to draw distinctions between the overall Palestinian cause, and people who champion it who are violent, sometimes genocidal antisemites. Pretty much all the dreadful messes Corbyn got himself into - famously calling Hamas 'friends' and 'a force for social justice' - but also the Wreath, Stephen Sizer, Dyab Abou JahJah, Paul Eisen, Williamson, and so on - are of this type. Where he embraced and promoted someone or something that was extremely unpleasant because it came wrapped in a Palestinian flag - and then compounded the error by assuming any and all criticism of them and him was in bad faith, and only apologising, if at all, when it was dragged kicking and screaming about it. Usually calling people objecting to things he had literally been filmed or recorded doing "smears". That's why it became widely thought he was antisemitic. At first, you'll note there were just questions raised about why he'd done x or y - Jonathan Freedland's famous column in 2015 took pains not to say he was an antisemite, just blind to it and a bit thick. Eventually, Freedland and lots of others (including the majority of British Jews, according to polling) concluded he was antisemitic, as no one could repeatedly be that insensitive and blind to what they were endorsing time and time again, without functionally being regarded as that. This week, sadly we've seen a similar process where too many are excusing awful antisemitic behaviour because the Israeli government not being pleasant serves as some kind of 'Get Out of Jail Free' card for those spouting tropes and views that wouldn't look out of place in 1930s Germany or 19th Century Russia.
With Corbyn, the classic was when he tried to get the ban on the entry of a “cleric” into the country lifted. He repeatedly praised the “cleric”.
When asked about the facts of the ban - the “cleric” in question had repeatedly engaged in hard core anti-Semitic rabble rousing, including the Blood Libel in a number of speeches and his writings - Corbyn resorted to “that’s disputed”, “I don’t know that” etc.
I mean, the history of that phrase is not one of exterminationist intent. "Palestine will be free / From the river to the sea" specifically is considered to come from the refusal to accept the partition of the land and the creation of the separate states - not a claim about exterminating Jewish people in the land at all.
History of the phrase is irrelevant - its what it has come to mean that counts.
I mean if the phrase has a continual usage not related to exterminationist views, which it has, I think it is quite relevant when making the claim that it would be "intellectually dishonest to claim [it] means anything other than the mass killing of Jews". Again, because I also know many Jewish people happy to chant it who understand it to mean no such thing!
"Many". Those are very much outliers.
It does not make their views less valid.
And indeed only viewing the "right" kinds of Jewish people as being "real" Jews is a big problem (especially in the Labour party):
Labour had a genuine problem with anti-semitism under Corbyn. For a time I even had a local Labour councillor (Hightown, Luton) who was an admirer of Hitler (and former Anti-Racism Officer at Warwick University). People like that thought Labour was their home.
Were there some anti-Semitic Labour party members? Yes. Was it institutionally racist - perhaps. Is throwing out left wing Jewish people who criticise Israel because that is apparently anti-Semitic actually sincere policing of anti-Semitism? No.
I would also argue all political parties have anti-Semites in, and bigots of other kinds, and that British culture is inherently anti-Semitic. I would also point to the many people who have noted that Conservative anti-Muslim prejudices are not treated with any seriousness, to the point where ex Tory ministers and members of the EHRC have mentioned it - with no mainstream acceptance that it is an issue or that Islamophobia is bad.
I would disagree absolutely with the assertion that British culture is inherently anti-Semitic in either the specific (Jewish) or general (including Arabic and other ME cultures) definitions. And having travelled very extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East for the last 35 years it is always a relief to come back to a country where overt anti-Jewish or anti-Arabic sentiment is so rare and so quickly condemned.
Anit-Semitic tropes are still pretty common at low levels amongst the British public. I wouldn't say there are many "hard-core" anti-Semites (holocaust denial, raging hatred of Jews, etc.) but the tropey stuff (Jewish people are greedy, insular, dual loyalty) alongside how much general conspiracism ends up leading to anti-Semitic views.
Who are you talking to for goodness sake? This does not match my experience of British life.
There IS a low level anti-Semitism in British society. Fortunately, nearly all of the time it remains exactly that - a quiet background murmur of tiny slurs, about them being clannish, cunning and wealthy. it's not just Britain. You can find it in almost every western society, if not all around the world
But other groups experience the same - blacks, Muslims, rich whites, poor whites (chavs!), gays, the English in Scotland, it is human nature
What makes anti-Semitism troubling amongst these many prejudices is that in certain groups it (uniquely?) metamorphosises into a potentially violent hatred - on the far right, the Corbynite left, and within radical Islam
For me the most shocking act of antisemitism from a current/past party leader during my lifetime wasn't anything Corbyn said but when Harold MacMillan said about Thatcher appointing so many Jews to her cabinet was
'The thing about Margaret’s Cabinet is that it includes more Old Estonians than it does Old Etonians.'
I am generally a fan of SuperMac but eesh.
Is that anti-Semitic or just clever wordplay expressing a truth? It can be viewed either way. Tricky one
Corbyn's shite is much worse. The mural? Really? He didn't notice? What a load of bollocks
A lot of pre-war novels can make you wince a bit, when you read stuff about Jews.
“The room was full of Jews, of the wrong sort.”
“He could not endure his girl marrying this swarthy son of Judah, whose father was likely selling matchsticks in Whitechapel.”
“Mark my words. Behind every conspiracy, there’s a little white-faced Jew, with an eye like a rattlesnake.”
Yes. And of course that famous poem by T S Eliot
From:
Burbank With A Baedeker Bleistein With A Cigar
A lustreless protrusive eye Stares from the protozoic slime At a perspective of Canaletto. The smoky candle end of time
Declines. On the Rialto once. The rats are underneath the piles. The jew is underneath the lot
I find much by Evelyn Waugh very funny, but he included some awful slurs (mainly directed at blacks).
It's interesting to speculate how this will pan out in future, ie what is it that we casually think and do now, which our descendants will find bewilderingly wrong? Because this moral evolution always happens
I suspect our treatment of animals will come under scrutiny. From keeping pets to factory farming
But maybe that's fairly obvious. What else?
Good question. I'd suggest where the wokists lead the rest of us follow but I know you won't want to hear that.
But, my god, the massive shift in public opinion over my lifetime (63 years) in the areas of diversity and inclusion, race, homosexuality, sexism, the treatment of animals, class prejudice, and - particularly noticeable to me - disability...
That massive shift has all been towards a kinder, gentler, more accepting society.
(And yes I know there are plenty of challenges still left, plenty of areas of improvement, areas of the world not seeing these benefits, and risks that we in the West could through this freedom away. But on the long view there has been enormous progress - no reason why it cannot continue if we will it.)
I’m not at all convinced that society is kinder than in 1960.
The same old cruelties, same old scandals, same old attitudes, come up again and again, even if they are repackaged in different form.
Nah. I think society and culture are both a lot more tolerant and understanding of difference.
So it is not Moorcock's Dancers at the Time but is is still a hell of at lot more diverse and welcoming of diversity than it was even when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s
It's a self-congratulatory, false diversity though. There's less room for the eccentric than there used to be.
C'mon, the eccentric are tolerated enough to be POTUS or PM..
I mean, the history of that phrase is not one of exterminationist intent. "Palestine will be free / From the river to the sea" specifically is considered to come from the refusal to accept the partition of the land and the creation of the separate states - not a claim about exterminating Jewish people in the land at all.
History of the phrase is irrelevant - its what it has come to mean that counts.
I mean if the phrase has a continual usage not related to exterminationist views, which it has, I think it is quite relevant when making the claim that it would be "intellectually dishonest to claim [it] means anything other than the mass killing of Jews". Again, because I also know many Jewish people happy to chant it who understand it to mean no such thing!
"Many". Those are very much outliers.
It does not make their views less valid.
And indeed only viewing the "right" kinds of Jewish people as being "real" Jews is a big problem (especially in the Labour party):
Labour had a genuine problem with anti-semitism under Corbyn. For a time I even had a local Labour councillor (Hightown, Luton) who was an admirer of Hitler (and former Anti-Racism Officer at Warwick University). People like that thought Labour was their home.
Were there some anti-Semitic Labour party members? Yes. Was it institutionally racist - perhaps. Is throwing out left wing Jewish people who criticise Israel because that is apparently anti-Semitic actually sincere policing of anti-Semitism? No.
I would also argue all political parties have anti-Semites in, and bigots of other kinds, and that British culture is inherently anti-Semitic. I would also point to the many people who have noted that Conservative anti-Muslim prejudices are not treated with any seriousness, to the point where ex Tory ministers and members of the EHRC have mentioned it - with no mainstream acceptance that it is an issue or that Islamophobia is bad.
I would disagree absolutely with the assertion that British culture is inherently anti-Semitic in either the specific (Jewish) or general (including Arabic and other ME cultures) definitions. And having travelled very extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East for the last 35 years it is always a relief to come back to a country where overt anti-Jewish or anti-Arabic sentiment is so rare and so quickly condemned.
Anit-Semitic tropes are still pretty common at low levels amongst the British public. I wouldn't say there are many "hard-core" anti-Semites (holocaust denial, raging hatred of Jews, etc.) but the tropey stuff (Jewish people are greedy, insular, dual loyalty) alongside how much general conspiracism ends up leading to anti-Semitic views.
Who are you talking to for goodness sake? This does not match my experience of British life.
There IS a low level anti-Semitism in British society. Fortunately, nearly all of the time it remains exactly that - a quiet background murmur of tiny slurs, about them being clannish, cunning and wealthy. it's not just Britain. You can find it in almost every western society, if not all around the world
But other groups experience the same - blacks, Muslims, rich whites, poor whites (chavs!), gays, the English in Scotland, it is human nature
What makes anti-Semitism troubling amongst these many prejudices is that in certain groups it (uniquely?) metamorphosises into a potentially violent hatred - on the far right, the Corbynite left, and within radical Islam
For me the most shocking act of antisemitism from a current/past party leader during my lifetime wasn't anything Corbyn said but when Harold MacMillan said about Thatcher appointing so many Jews to her cabinet was
'The thing about Margaret’s Cabinet is that it includes more Old Estonians than it does Old Etonians.'
I am generally a fan of SuperMac but eesh.
Is that anti-Semitic or just clever wordplay expressing a truth? It can be viewed either way. Tricky one
Corbyn's shite is much worse. The mural? Really? He didn't notice? What a load of bollocks
A lot of pre-war novels can make you wince a bit, when you read stuff about Jews.
“The room was full of Jews, of the wrong sort.”
“He could not endure his girl marrying this swarthy son of Judah, whose father was likely selling matchsticks in Whitechapel.”
“Mark my words. Behind every conspiracy, there’s a little white-faced Jew, with an eye like a rattlesnake.”
Yes. And of course that famous poem by T S Eliot
From:
Burbank With A Baedeker Bleistein With A Cigar
A lustreless protrusive eye Stares from the protozoic slime At a perspective of Canaletto. The smoky candle end of time
Declines. On the Rialto once. The rats are underneath the piles. The jew is underneath the lot
I find much by Evelyn Waugh very funny, but he included some awful slurs (mainly directed at blacks).
It's interesting to speculate how this will pan out in future, ie what is it that we casually think and do now, which our descendants will find bewilderingly wrong? Because this moral evolution always happens
I suspect our treatment of animals will come under scrutiny. From keeping pets to factory farming
But maybe that's fairly obvious. What else?
Good question. I'd suggest where the wokists lead the rest of us follow but I know you won't want to hear that.
But, my god, the massive shift in public opinion over my lifetime (63 years) in the areas of diversity and inclusion, race, homosexuality, sexism, the treatment of animals, class prejudice, and - particularly noticeable to me - disability...
That massive shift has all been towards a kinder, gentler, more accepting society.
(And yes I know there are plenty of challenges still left, plenty of areas of improvement, areas of the world not seeing these benefits, and risks that we in the West could through this freedom away. But on the long view there has been enormous progress - no reason why it cannot continue if we will it.)
I’m not at all convinced that society is kinder than in 1960.
The same old cruelties, same old scandals, same old attitudes, come up again and again, even if they are repackaged in different form.
Nah. I think society and culture are both a lot more tolerant and understanding of difference.
So it is not Moorcock's Dancers at the Time but is is still a hell of at lot more diverse and welcoming of diversity than it was even when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s
It's a self-congratulatory, false diversity though. There's less room for the eccentric than there used to be.
C'mon, the eccentric are tolerated enough to be POTUS or PM..
NATO warns: Putin could freeze the War at any time
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warns that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be planning to put the war against Ukraine on hold, according to a report by RBC Ukraine.
The NATO Secretary-General acknowledges that there is always a certain risk that President Putin may take measures to prevent Ukraine from regaining its territory.
Isn't that basically what has already happened? Both sides have wound offensive operations down to close to zero.
NATO warns: Putin could freeze the War at any time
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warns that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be planning to put the war against Ukraine on hold, according to a report by RBC Ukraine.
The NATO Secretary-General acknowledges that there is always a certain risk that President Putin may take measures to prevent Ukraine from regaining its territory.
Isn't that basically what has already happened? Both sides have wound offensive operations down to close to zero.
I'm not sure that's true. If memory serves, the Russians had a torrid time in their recent attempt to re(?)take Avdiivka, with successive human wave attacks and predictable results (tanks driving over dead bodies). It's not so much winding up ops, so much that no matter what they do the lines aren't moving and all that happens is they build up bigger piles of corpses and amputated limbs.
NATO warns: Putin could freeze the War at any time
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warns that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be planning to put the war against Ukraine on hold, according to a report by RBC Ukraine.
The NATO Secretary-General acknowledges that there is always a certain risk that President Putin may take measures to prevent Ukraine from regaining its territory.
Isn't that basically what has already happened? Both sides have wound offensive operations down to close to zero.
I'm not sure that's true. If memory serves, the Russians had a torrid time in their recent attempt to re(?)take Avdiivka, with successive human wave attacks and predictable results (tanks driving over dead bodies). It's not so much winding up ops, so much that no matter what they do the lines aren't moving and all that happens is they build up bigger piles of corpses and amputated limbs.
As ever @Dura_Ace takes a rather interesting viewpoint...
Avdiivka is interesting. There's little doubt Russia have had a major offensive there, and for logical reasons. There's also little doubt that, so far, it has failed. How much Ukraine has been bled is a question; but there's little doubt Russia has lost a lot of blood and treasure in its attack so far.
Somewhat startling piece on new homes built to low standards of insulation etc. (i.e. low specifications, rather than jerrybuilding). I am sure some are better, but even so ...
I still don't get why more homes are not built with solar panels as standard from the start. Economies of scale would, I assume, make it cheaper, and who is going to otice an extra few grand in the buying price if you are already spending £200K+.
I would have thought thta madating a minimum number of homes in each new development to haev solar panels would be a good way to up provision easily and cheaply.
I mean, because that would increase the construction price and developers dislike having to spend money and the Tories have, since Thatcher really, been in the role of mediating the interests of developers and home owners.
I'll be interested in the details of this Labour plan for modern garden cities. If the idea is just send it out to developers on current specs, it is going to be awful - huge developments of new builds that will last a decade if we're lucky. If Labour do it seriously and put proper specs on things - solar, insulation, maybe even limit the average car per home design and aim to have things build in line with the idea of walkable cities - then it could be great.
I'm not sure that people understand just how wretched new builds tend to be. It isn't universal - some are decent. But for so many (myself included) a new build home quickly shows just how cheaply it was thrown together. My former estate of 1,100 new homes from three builders had serious issues on all house designs from all three builders. So it didn;'t matter what you bought or from whom, it was crap.
In our case we had a house that audibly creaked in windy weather, with cracking plaster on various walls and as we discovered several years after buying it, empty cavity walls where Barratts had "forgotten" to install insulation. On every house they built. To say nothing about the garden made from rubble etc etc etc.
House prices have gone bonkers, yet the housebuilders construct the cheapest possible crap. This is the british problem in full effect - crap product at top money.
In Victorian/Edwardian times, builders built what they could get away with, as well.
The limiting factor was people having choice and checking quality. The houses that have survived from that period were the good ones. Plenty of references from that period of new houses being unsold as shoddy, ugly etc. - they were often knocked down, having never been occupied.
No. 10 Downing Street itself is of a poor build quality, and it (and its neighbours) has required lots of significant work over the years - more than would be expected for its age and use.
Comments
We could spend hours, days, months, talking about the bad things done in the past by/in Israel/Palestine and the surrounding territories. But we can’t achieve peace unless we recognise that the children aren’t responsible for the sins of their parents.
The limiting factor was people having choice and checking quality. The houses that have survived from that period were the good ones. Plenty of references from that period of new houses being unsold as shoddy, ugly etc. - they were often knocked down, having never been occupied.
Today we have the problem that any crap sells. There is massive under With Corbyn, the classic was when he tried to get the ban on the entry of a “cleric” into the country lifted. He repeatedly praised the “cleric”.
When asked about the facts of the ban - the “cleric” in question had repeatedly engaged in hard core anti-Semitic rabble rousing, including the Blood Libel in a number of speeches and his writings - Corbyn resorted to “that’s disputed”, “I don’t know that” etc.
https://x.com/HTScotPol/status/1713914933560180846?s=20
https://nitter.net/IhateTrenches/status/1712764030249513333#m
Avdiivka is interesting. There's little doubt Russia have had a major offensive there, and for logical reasons. There's also little doubt that, so far, it has failed. How much Ukraine has been bled is a question; but there's little doubt Russia has lost a lot of blood and treasure in its attack so far.