Re: Now they are trying to smear the consituents...and increasing the risk of worse antisemitism... Archived Message
Posted by John Monro on February 24, 2019, 7:07 pm, in reply to "Now they are trying to smear the consituents..."
In regard to the tweet, the article says this: The original wasn’t long. It stated: “Jewish people with any sense of humanity need to start speaking out publicly against the ruthless murdering being carried out by Israel!” Essentially, Hatton did what the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance defines as a concrete example of antisemitism: “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.” This logic of this position is patently false. The Nazis - who put them there? A multitude of Germans. Were they responsible, of course they were. Would it have been wrong at the time to ask Germans to speak out about what was happening? Of course not. Who puts the increasingly nasty Netanyahu in power and are the promoters of Isreal's apartheid state? The citizens of Israel, most are Jews, but their Jewishness is not the problem. But who uses accusations of antisemitism and the jewishness of the State of Israel to deflect criticism of its actions? The Israeli state. That is the problem. No-one is "holding Jews collectively responsible" for the actions of the State of Israel. But it is perfectly fair to point out that Jews everywhere have a moral dilemma - how far do they allow the State of Isreal to act inhumanely against so many other people without speaking up about it? That shows exactly why the definition of antisemitism by the Holocaust Remembrance Alliance was so problematic and why Labour was so reticent about recognising this definition. And why naive and likely prejudiced reporters should develop a rather better moral perspective of their own before accusing others of their own lack of such. The horrible danger about all this, as I wrote some time ago, is that this misuse of antisemitism by Israel and its supporters will indeed make antisemitism, which really is pretty quiescent in the UK, worse - it's actually stoking the flames of prejudice and intolerance and it's very worrying.
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