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    Milne? 📂 Archived Message

    Posted by Ian M on December 8, 2020, 12:02 pm, in reply to "Tripe Review of Tripe"

    Hi Chris, you say Milne is writing his 'account' of the Corbyn project. I had a quick search and couldn't find it mentioned online anywhere, just msm articles smearing him relentlessly. Where did you hear about it? TBH his is probably the only account, other than Corbyn's himself, that I would consider reading. Though a bit pointless speaking up now after he allowed himself to be locked away in a cupboard for the last 5 years, not even apparently allowed to respond to the smear campaigns against him personally. I just found this article he wrote in the graun back in 2002 where he shows that he clearly understood the cynicism of a/s claims against the left when used to defend the crimes of Israel:

    https://www.dumptheguardian.com/world/2002/may/09/comment

    '[T]he left stands accused of anti-semitism because of its opposition to Israel's military occupation and continuing dispossession of the Palestinians. As the Palestinian intifada and Israeli repression rage on, rightwing commentators and religious leaders have claimed the left is guilty of "anti-Jewish prejudice", double standards towards Israel and even apeing the anti-semitic "blood libels" of the Middle Ages with the ferocity of its charges of Israeli massacres. Britain's chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has widened the attack to the media and equated any questioning of Israel's legitimacy with "calling into question the Jewish people's right to exist collectively". In the US, the denunciation of the left over Israel has been extended to include the whole mainstream European political system.

    There is little question that there has been a growth of overt anti-semitism in Europe, especially since the collapse of European communism more than a decade ago. That trend has quickened since the start of the second intifada and Ariel Sharon's election as Israel's prime minister. In Britain, physical attacks on Jews have increased significantly - even if they remain far fewer than assaults on black, Asian and Muslim people - and now a London synagogue has been desecrated. With the far right on the march across the continent, it is hardly surprising that a community barely a couple of generations away from the most devastating genocide in human history feels beleaguered - a perception heightened by atrocities against civilians in Israel, such as Tuesday's suicide attack in Rishon Letzion.

    No doubt some on the left have wrongly taken the comparative wealth and position of Britain's Jewish community as a sign that the social cancer of anti-semitism is somehow less dangerous than other forms of racism. The graveyards of Europe are a permanent reminder that it is not. The left is certainly not immune from racist currents in society; and it needs aggressively to police the line between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism, taking into account Jewish sensitivities in the way it campaigns for justice in the Middle East.

    But none of that excuses the smear that left or liberal support for Palestinian rights is somehow connected to resurgent anti-Jewish racism - an absurd slur which is itself being used as an apologia for Israel's brutal war of subjugation in the occupied territories. All the evidence is that it is the far right, the traditional fount of anti-semitic poison, which has been overwhelmingly responsible for attacks on both Muslim and Jewish targets in Europe. Violence from the Islamist fringe no doubt also poses a threat, but not even in the wildest rantings of Israel's cheerleaders has it been suggested that any group on the left could have had anything to do with, say, the trashing of the Finsbury Park synagogue. Nor is it hostile media coverage that is fuelling criticism of Israel, but what is actually taking place on the ground in Bethlehem, Nablus and Ramallah.'

    Where the f* was he - Executive Director of Strategy and Communications no less! - making this analysis heard during the a/s furore against Corbyn and the left in general, when it actually would have counted for something? What's the point of writing books after the fight is over and you lost, because you didn't actually fight? Doesn't that just compound the cowardice, showing that you were capable of responding forcefully, but failed to do so at the crucial time? It reminds me of what that american neo-con figure (I forget who) said about how they were history's true actors, and those on the left could carry on writing really good records of what happened, but otherwise be completely powerless to affect the actual direction of policy.

    The Left: talks big until the chips are down, when it folds immediately, then goes back to talking big. What a disappointment...

    I

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