That Corbyn fella...

support of the Palestinian cause

I’m sure @punkture will be along shortly to point out that that in itself is often anitsemitism.

corbyn should just go full fat, blue top racist, that way he'll have no end of invitations to appear on the telly to put forward his agenda, policies and vision for the country.

I posted (what seems like) a shortened version of that:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/20/labour-code-of-conduct-not-antisemitic

I'm still baffled as to why people fetishised the IHRA thing. It's pretty much a textbook lesson in how not to attempt to define something. In the high emotion of politics, once a text has acquired such mythical status, attention to how to write a good definition probably goes out of the window pretty quickly.

Really? You don't have a slight suspicion as to why certain people have decided it's a sacred text from which no dissent (let alone improvement on) is allowed?

Isn’t it obvious? Just like being against the South African apartheid state was racist against Afrikaners.

So, this intervention by London Palestine Action is quite interesting to me:
https://twitter.com/LondonPalestine/status/1037348127509032965

It's obviously inflammatory. But it's the kind of thing that people on the left could easily say about many countries. Many years ago when I was studying political theory, I'd happily talk about how all states are exclusive and exclusionary constructs whose legitimacy depends on a shared social identity whose corrolary is prejudice against whoever is defined as the 'other'. It's just how these things seem to work. There's lots of empirical evidence supporting the analysis. I don't think it's analytically controversial.

But it is hugely politically controversial, because people with nationalistic feeling generally don't like to be told that they're just part of a feelings machine that legitimises state power. That doesn't really satisfy their (often honestly held) deep feelings of attachment to their chosen group. But at the same time, we do admit of the possibility of changing groups (naturalisation), so we can conceive of the idea that these identities are malleable. We just don't like to pull on the thread much.

So, to Israel. Israel is, like any other nation-state, biased in favour of those it wants to be its citizens, and against those it wants to exclude. Everyone does it.

And the discourse around Israel, around Zionism, and around Jewishness conflates the three concepts. Israel has always defined itself through the other two concepts, and in recent years has started to severely limit alternative narratives of Israeliness. Meanwhile Israel has been quite keen to emphasise the idea that Jewishness and Israeliness are somehow linked, as a) they want to attract more non-Arabs to the country, and b) frankly, sometimes the Israeli state plays the antisemitism card to block legitimate criticism of the state.

This has all crept into a popular political discourse that is already going through a bit of a paroxysm of self-redefinition after all the old certainties (East vs West) fell away in the 1990s. The idea that Jews should have a safe place (justifiable) that is Israel (again, justifiable) has somehow become conflated with Israel's definition of itself (which is a function of state policy and so should actually be up for political discussion). This has translated both into people who disagree with the Israeli government attacking the idea of Israel itself (sorry, but it's there and that's a fact we do have to accept), and also of people seeing attacks on Israel as being attacks on Jewishness.

And of course, there are some people in both camps who want these kinds of crossed wires to exist, because any increase in polarisation increases support for their more extreme positions on the situation.

Where do we go from here? I don't know exactly. I think Gordon Brown's speech the other day did a good job of showing that it is possible to oppose Israeli government policy without opposing Israel's right to exist, and that it is possible to recognise - as all countries must - that not everything a country has done to become what they are today was good and just. I don't see that kind of self-awareness in Bibi's politics - if anything, he is whipping people up the other way. And Corbyn has basically spent most of this debate trying to keep his head down and hope that it'll blow over, when he must surely be aware that some of his past rhetoric could be used against him. I don't think he's an anti-Semite. But I agree with the line that the FT and others have taken that it speaks poorly of his ability to lead - he didn't think of a way to get out ahead of the wedge issue and control the narrative: he just battened down the hatches.

Great post.

Meanwhile Israel has been quite keen to emphasise the idea that Jewishness and Israeliness are somehow linked

Somehow linked? It’s written into the laws. I may be wrong but I think Israel is actually unique. If you’re Jewish you have an open invitation.

‘Israel is a racist endeavour’ is undeniably true (and it’s sad labour has decided this truth is too problematic). However it’s probably not a very helpful or productive conversation anyway. Sticking it in London adshells is pretty insensitive.

Iran, who's leaders believe Israel should not exist, are sending their state propaganda TV reporters to Labour meetings.

https://twitter.com/Presstvuk/status/1037806260450742277

So lost 92 to 94 votes hardly decisive victory and it never occurred to me that Trots Stalinists Communists and assorted hard left would gave confidence in me. I have none in them.

and yet you wonder why people don't wan't to engage with you...

Wheres the quote from?

from that twatter thread up yonder.

https://twitter.com/joanryanEnfield/status/1037827090723340289

What a thing to say.

I may be wrong but I think Israel is actually unique. If you’re Jewish you have an open invitation.

You are wrong (although Israel may be unique in other ways). Ethnic Nationalism is a feature of several other countries e.g., Armenia, who offer privileged immigration status to members of an ethnic diaspora.

As a white English British citizen and therefore a mongrel of various ethnic backgrounds (including Irish, Italian, Jewish and almost certainly northern European/Scandinavian) and a member of a deliberately ethnically-mixed country, the idea of an ethnostate is really troubling. If you asked me whether any country should be created for the express purpose of being a home specifically for one ethnic group, I'd say no, and given the intractable shitstorm that the creation of Israel has left us with it's pretty clear (in hindsight) that it wasn't the best idea.

However, we have to deal with the situation as it is: Israel does exist and its ceasing to exist would create a further shitstorm and suffering for a lot of people. Israel also does a good job of being a much better progressive, liberal democracy (on many fronts) than many other middle-east countries. I therefore have the slightly weird viewpoint of objecting to the existence of Israel in principle (on the basis that it's a quasi- or budding ethnostate), but not in practice. All we can do is make the best of a bad situation. Trying to critique the actions of Israel from that standpoint is really tiresome though as you constantly have to dodge the accusation of being specifically anti-Israel and therefore (by implication) anti-semitic.

liberal democracy

Good one.

How is it illiberal?

How is it not a democracy?

pretty sure Palestinians can't vote in general elections.

Can an ethnostate be liberal? In the truest sense of the word if liberal means anything along the lines of "willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas".

Can an ethnostate be democratic? In the truest sense of the word if democracy means anything like "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state" when specific members (the Palestinian ones) are not eligible for clean water and electricity let alone democratic participation.

I'm not baffled at all, just sad that people will use such an issue for political point scoring.

Doesn't really scream political skill at the highest level.

Nor do Corbyn and McDonnell, to be fair.

Part of the problem is the decades of conflict and Israeli fear of the Palestinians.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-21/israeli-arabs-and-jews-miss-opportunity-at-protest-rally

Hardly surprising that Israeli are bunkering if the new ideas involve people shouting "blood and fire"

But Israeli Arabs can, and they're represented in the Knesset.

Palestinians can vote in their own elections. The removal of their sovereignty through an occupying force doesn't effect how democractic Israel is.

It clearly isn't an equal society, but that doesn't stop it being a democracy.

@croft - imo 'liberal' covers such a wide range of ideas that it's hard to argue either way. So I probably shouldn't have reference that.

Who does now?