Go back just under ten years and people were gradually beginning to raise concerns about the emergence of antisemitism in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. A number of Jewish MPs began to talk about their negative experience of what they considered to be racist and bullying behaviour. A number of defences were mounted at the time. These included that Jeremy Corbyn and those around him were committed anti-racists, that we need to distinguish between antisemitism and anti-Zionism (note we were never asked to distinguish anti-Zionism in general from a specific opposition to the Israeli state), and that there were Jews amongst the leadership of the movement around Corbyn who agreed with those being accused of antisemitism.
10 years later and the same arguments are being played out again, this time in relation to the Green Party and specifically to the leader, Zac Polanski. What makes this particularly complex is that Polanski himself is Jewish. So, the defence is that it is not possible to consider specific events and positions to be antisemitic because Polenski himself holds some positions and certainly does not seem to have a problem with them. How can we accuse the Green Party of having a “Jewish” problem?
In this article I want to focus specifically on that question, not just because it affects the Green Party or because it is solely an issue concerning antisemitism but rather because it affects how we approach other issues. I think that the simplest way of handling the dilemma is to look at how the far left have tended to engage with similar examples. Let me give you two specific examples, racism and sexism.
In 1975, the Conservative Party elected its first female leader, indeed Margaret Thatcher was the first female leader of a mainstream political party and the first female Prime Minister. Surely this demonstrated that the Conservative Party did not have a problem with women in power, surely it proved that there wasn’t gender inequality, men and women could make it to the very top job. Furthermore, Thatcher would have disavowed much of what the modern feminist movement stood for. Did feminists as a result conclude that the Tory Party were a safe home for feminists? Would they have accepted the rejoinder that they were putting themselves in opposition with a woman and refusing to pay attention to her making them sexists themselves?
Fast forward 50 years and the Conservative Party found themselves electing another woman. This time, the woman also happened to be Nigerian. She succeeded an Asian Hindu, Not only that, the Conservatives had managed to provide very ethnically diverse cabinets over a significant period in office. A number of those leading Conservatives have rejected the idea of systemic or structural racism. Does it mean then that if you disagree with Kemi Badenoch and her colleagues that you are racist and possibly sexist too.
Well, I guess that it is possible that in those cases, some people have inadvertently disclosed their implicit bias. Certainly, there is a recognised form of racism which dismisses black and Asian people who don’t fit with expected stereotypes as “coconuts.” Back during the Black Lives Matter protests, I argued that if we do not hear the voices of black people who disagreed with the movement then that could be itself a form of racism. I think it’s important therefore that we treat Zac Polanski with the same level of respect. We should not silence him because he is not saying what we want him to say and what we expect him to say as a Jew.
We may of course have questions about how Polanski has reached a position that seems so at odds with other Jewish people and how he can comfortably reconcile his identity with leadership of the Green Party given some of the horrific things that a number of party members have been saying. Indeed, we might wonder how those people can reconcile some of their statements with having a Jewish leader. Similar questions might have arisen in terms of the attitudes that some Conservatives have whilst adulating Thatcher and supporting Badenoch. We may wonder too why at various times people from ethnic minorities have voted for, campaigned for and shared platforms with the Far Right.
Some people are temped to put this down to a form of introverted xenophobia, a self loathing, shame and hatred towards one’s own people. This is possible but I’m not convinced that this is what is happening. Rather, I think it is somewhat similar to what we saw ten years ago. It is possible to be so passionate about a cause, in this case, the anti-colonialist agenda of the left that you either don’t see or willingly tolerate the direction that your rhetoric is taking you.
Our response should be to listen to the arguments that Polanski makes, just as we should listen to the arguments of Thatcher, Sunak and Badenoch and evaluate them objectively. In this case, is it true that Jewish people are not currently subjected to a level of hate that causes them to have reasonable fear for their own safety? My conclusion would be that what we have seen in terms of the recent history of two officially mainstream political parties, the recent policy of the Aston villa v Maccabi Tel Aviv game, the rhetoric heard in chants and seen on banners at marches and thew violent attacks against Jews and synagogues paint an objective picture of a country where antisemitism has become a serious problem and where Jews have every right to be concerned and distressed.
It is particularly concerning that in response to this, what we have seen is the gaslighting of the Jewish community. This has included people denying that last week’s attack at Golders Green was antisemitic or terrorism because the attacker had assaulted a non-Jew earlier in the day (as though we can minimise the Holocaust as an anti-Jewish atrocity because there were other victims in the 2nd World War, an argument that unfortunately I’ve seen made). It’s also include accusations that antisemitism is being weaponised for political purposes (there is a campaign to denounce the concerns raised about Labour under Corbyn as a hoax). It also includes examples of Jews who are supportive of a particular agenda being platformed and presented as representative in order to downplay and dismiss the claims of Jews who are saying that they have been victims of antisemitism.
I would encourage us to stick to what is objectively there as evidence and I believe that the objective evidence points to a significant and concerning growth in antisemitism. Instead of downplaying and dismissing such racism, we need to take a clear and unequivocal stand in speaking up against it.
Faithroots 