Galloway

BlindBoyGrunt said:
There have always been problems with the examples contained in the definition, that's why Corbyn in his time as leader accepted the definition but regarded some of the examples as problematic.
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That wasn't my question to the other poster..... it was you believe what Galloway said was acceptable
 
Geoff_B said:
During that statement, he made a Holocaust comparison, saying: "If the by-election had been in February of 1940 or 41, would anyone seriously have condemned me for putting the crimes of the Holocaust at the centre of my election campaign?"

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's working definition of antisemitism lists "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" among its examples.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism hit out at the new Rochdale MP, saying he "knows exactly where the line is and purposely strides over it".

They added: "Diminishing the Holocaust through this appalling comparison is repulsive, although at this point we should expect nothing less from Britain's newest MP."

I’m expecting a “that isn’t anti semitic” comment but given the example above it clearly is in the eyes of The IHRA

Maybe I am wrong 🤔
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* [My comments are not personal to you Geoff, but based on my own experience in Palestine]

The IHRA definition is a gagging order for anyone who criticizes Israel and its actions.
It equates Zionism with Judaism to justify itself.
It isn't recognized by all Jewish Groups, Organizations, Universities, etc.
Anti-Semitism is weaponized to silence dissent.

The Israeli state has laid bare is true identity well before the current situation in Palestine, which has been going on since 1948: although the pro-zionist media doesn't tell you that or report its repression, torture, internment without trial or charge, demolition of Palestinian homes, stealing Palestinian land and shooting and abusing children. Over 6 million Palestinians have been forced out of their own country and have no right of return.

Having been to Palestine and personally experienced the apartheid nature of the Zionist regime [Hebron / Nablus / East and West Jerusalem / Ramallah / Bethlehem / Tel Aviv / etc] it takes your breath away when you see apartheid in action.

Israel doesn't represent all Jews, and it is anti-Semitic to assume all Jews regard Israel as their natural home.

I have friends in Palestine who are Palestinian Christians [Born in Bethlehem] and a mate in Tel Aviv [born in Israel] who is a non-practising Jew. He has been in prison for refusing to join the Israeli army [IOF] and campaigning for a single democratic state, with equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis. Israel is only “democratic” if you are a Jewish Zionist. The ongoing protests in Tel Aviv against Netanyahu, for the campaign to release the hostages and stop the war, has seen Israelis experience beatings by armed police, the spraying of “dirty water” over protesters and violence against them. The regime uses the same methods against those who oppose it. They have perfected that brutality on the Palestinians for decades. Israel is actively committing genocide against the Palestinians because they are an ethnic group. If that was happening in Ukraine, it would be plastered across the media in Western Europe.

Our country is actively providing weapons and logistical support to the Zionist regime, along with the Americans and other countries. Destroying hospitals and schools, has nothing to do with defence. Neither has starving a civilian population and shooting children through the head in the West Bank. Israel is strategic for the imperial colonial western powers. Supplying, 2000lb bombs has nothing to do with Israel “defending itself”. It is a nuclear power which has made incursions into other sovereign states and committed crimes with impunity since its inception.

The fanatical racist zealots in the Israeli cabinet are proactive in promoting genocide, and believe all Palestinians should be displaced from their own country-Palestine and driven out. It's not a “complex” situation. Under the UN Charter, a country under occupation has the right to resist and the right to Self-Determination. Ethnic Cleansing began in 1948, not on October 7th.

The smearing of anyone critical of Israel of “antisemitism” has worn very thin, and for those who get smeared by supporters of genocide it means nothing but an excuse to defend genocide. Period. It's being used today to attack Muslims and Pro-Palestinians in this country, to suppress free speech. The use of the term by members of the British Government and opposition, calling innocent peaceful protesters “Hate Marchers” and a “Mob” is a deliberate tactic to take the focus away from their complicity in genocide.

For me, there has to be one state where all faiths live side by side in a democracy [as they have done previously]. The Zionist colonial structure needs to be dismantled and the fanatics disarmed. Those who perpetuate the current state of affairs are on a road to self-destruction. A conflagration in the Middle East and around the world will erupt anytime due to the actions of the Israeli regime and affect all of us. If the Americans stopped the bombs tonight, the war on the Palestinians would be over within days. The extremist fanatics would be out of government, the blood lusting Prime minister would be in prison, and there would be a move forward towards a lasting peace.

The biggest and most critical issue for non-Zionist Jews and the rest of us, is that real antisemitism is on the rise whilst the Zionist lie and lie and lie. Israel has fostered alliances with some of the most tyrannical and right-wing anti-Semitic nations and governments on the planet: Hungary is one example, whose leader is openly anti-Semitic. It supplies spy technology and torture techniques across the planet. It supplies training to British Armed Forces and Police. Furthermore, it provides similar training to the Americans and other countries around the world. Moreover, it “Battle Tests” weapons systems on live Palestinian civilians and allows companies like Elbeit, BAE Systems, Ratheon, et al. to sell their weapons as “Battle Tested”.

Israel is a highly racialised society, where supremacism is institutionally promoted and practised. If you get the opportunity to watch Israeli TV or listen to Israeli Army Radio, it becomes frighteningly obvious.

Let's not dismiss the fact that Christians of all denominations in Palestine [and Orthodox Jews], are also subjected to daily beating, humiliation and oppression by the Israeli Police and Army. I've seen it with my own eyes in the old City of Jerusalem and across the West Bank. Once you experience what is under the veil of lies portrayed and perpetuated by “western media”, Israel is not the victim they claim, in order to justify arming it with billions $$$ of “aid”.

The Zionists are the problem, not Jews or any other faith.

Hope that puts the IRHA in context.

​
 
Thanks for the above and your experience of the situation in the Middle East is far more in depth than mine.

My question was though, which seems to be getting skirted round was to 2 other posters asking if they thought what Galloway said was acceptable.

I don’t, whatever definition you want to use I can’t see how any Isreal policy can currently compare to the horrors of the holocaust, as it stands.

That’s what Galloway was doing, to me you either agree with it or you don’t. I think what he said was wrong.
 
Geoff_B said:
Thanks for the above and your experience of the situation in the Middle East is far more in depth than mine.

My question was though, which seems to be getting skirted round was to 2 other posters asking if they thought what Galloway said was acceptable.

I don’t, whatever definition you want to use I can’t see how any Isreal policy can currently compare to the horrors of the holocaust, as it stands.

That’s what Galloway was doing, to me you either agree with it or you don’t. I think what he said was wrong.
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You mention this part of the IHRA definition: "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis."

The Campaign Against Antisemitism spokesperson refers to this section: "Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust)."

If the quote you posted is what he actually said then no, I don't think is was antisemitic based on the IHRA definition you've chosen to highlight. He doesn't reference Israel at all. He's letting the reader/listener make that inference but I'd guess his response to being called out on that would be that you'd have to be antisemitic to make that connection.

I think he's skirting a fine line but I'd guess he's thought long and hard about how to keep on the correct side of things.

As to the CAA accusation, as far as I can tell, the sections about the Holocaust are largely to do with it being antisemitic to deny it happened or to downplay the scale of it. I'd argue that it's the 'go to' example of genocide so it'd be odd not to refer to it when talking about genocide in general, which he's doing.

I'd be happy to see an explanation that shows how and where he diminishes the Holocaust as my interpretation of IHRA may not be correct.
 
Geoff_B said:
"If the by-election had been in February of 1940 or 41, would anyone seriously have condemned me for putting the crimes of the Holocaust at the centre of my election campaign?"
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Geoff_B said:
They added: "Diminishing the Holocaust through this appalling comparison is repulsive, although at this point we should expect nothing less from Britain's newest MP."
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Does Galloways quote there diminish the holocaust? I feel like the sentiment is that of course he'd talk about it then as such an important, & dreadful event, and of course he's talking about Gaza now?
 
I remember seeing Galloway on Daily Politics about 10 years ago, doing some sort of campaign about the price of popcorn in cinemas being too high. At the time it just seemed like people thought he was quite silly and ruined his credibility pretending to be a cat on Big Brother. But now, and last year in the Batley byelection he seems to be utterly despised by people.
 
Corcaigh_the_Cat said:
Is the IHRA ok with the Israelis of being accused of genocide as long as they're not compared to the genocide carried out by the Nazis?
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No, cause if you don't mention every other genocide then you're unfairly singling out Israel with different expectations to every other country.

So if you mention the Nazis its antisemitic, where as if you don't it's antisemitic. ;)
 
Scrote said:
You mention this part of the IHRA definition: "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis."

The Campaign Against Antisemitism spokesperson refers to this section: "Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust)."

If the quote you posted is what he actually said then no, I don't think is was antisemitic based on the IHRA definition you've chosen to highlight. He doesn't reference Israel at all. He's letting the reader/listener make that inference but I'd guess his response to being called out on that would be that you'd have to be antisemitic to make that connection.

I think he's skirting a fine line but I'd guess he's thought long and hard about how to keep on the correct side of things.

As to the CAA accusation, as far as I can tell, the sections about the Holocaust are largely to do with it being antisemitic to deny it happened or to downplay the scale of it. I'd argue that it's the 'go to' example of genocide so it'd be odd not to refer to it when talking about genocide in general, which he's doing.

I'd be happy to see an explanation that shows how and where he diminishes the Holocaust as my interpretation of IHRA may not be correct.
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I agree he doesn’t reference that in as such words, but also feel your correct in the fact he knows exactly what he is doing.
 
Geoff_B said:
Ah thought their might be an “issue”

So you believe Galloways comment was acceptable then?
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I don't see anything wrong with the specific comment you quoted, I believe there's been ethnic cleansing / genocide initiated by the Israeli government while the world's stood by and done next to nothing except supply them with arms to carry on. It's happening in front of our eyes but you're not supposed to talk about it and if you do the you're generally silenced. I always refer people to moderate Labour Sir Gerald Kaufman MP's speeches on the subject and though I disagreed with him on many other matters on this issue he was spot on and his words are even more valid today eg during the Gaza War on 15 January 2009, Kaufman gave this speech to the Commons where he stated (verbatim from Hansard):

Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab): I was brought up as an orthodox Jew and a Zionist. On a shelf in our kitchen, there was a tin box for the Jewish National Fund, into which we put coins to help the pioneers building a Jewish presence in Palestine.
I first went to Israel in 1961 and I have been there since more times than I can count. I had family in Israel and have friends in Israel. One of them fought in the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973 and was wounded in two of them. The tie clip that I am wearing is made from a campaign decoration awarded to him, which he presented to me.
I have known most of the Prime Ministers of Israel, starting with the founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Golda Meir was my friend, as was Yigal Allon, Deputy Prime Minister, who, as a general, won the Negev for Israel in the 1948 war of independence.
My parents came to Britain as refugees from Poland. Most of their families were subsequently murdered by the Nazis in the holocaust. My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed.
My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli Government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives are precious, but the lives of Palestinians do not count.
On Sky News a few days ago, the spokeswoman for the Israeli army, Major Leibovich, was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time, 800 Palestinians—the total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that
  • “500 of them were militants.”
That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose that the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants.

The Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asserts that her Government will have no dealings with Hamas, because they are terrorists. Tzipi Livni’s father was Eitan Livni, chief operations officer of the terrorist Irgun Zvai Leumi, who organised the blowing-up of the King David hotel in Jerusalem, in which 91 victims were killed, including four Jews.
Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism. Jewish terrorists hanged two British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses. Irgun, together with the terrorist Stern gang, massacred 254 Palestinians in 1948 in the village of Deir Yassin. Today, the current Israeli Government indicate that they would be willing, in circumstances acceptable to them, to negotiate with the Palestinian President Abbas of Fatah. It is too late for that. They could have negotiated with Fatah’s previous leader, Yasser Arafat, who was a friend of mine. Instead, they besieged him in a bunker in Ramallah, where I visited him. Because of the failings of Fatah since Arafat’s death, Hamas won the Palestinian election in 2006. Hamas is a deeply nasty organisation, but it was democratically elected, and it is the only game in town. The boycotting of Hamas, including by our Government, has been a culpable error, from which dreadful consequences have followed.

The great Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, with whom I campaigned for peace on many platforms, said:

“You make peace by talking to your enemies.”

However many Palestinians the Israelis murder in Gaza, they cannot solve this existential problem by military means. Whenever and however the fighting ends, there will still be 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and 2.5 million more on the west bank. They are treated like dirt by the Israelis, with hundreds of road blocks and with the ghastly denizens of the illegal Jewish settlements harassing them as well. The time will come, not so long from now, when they will outnumber the Jewish population in Israel.

It is time for our Government to make clear to the Israeli Government that their conduct and policies are unacceptable, and to impose a total arms ban on Israel. It is time for peace, but real peace, not the solution by conquest which is the Israelis’ real goal but which it is impossible for them to achieve. They are not simply war criminals; they are fools."
 
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Geoff_B said:
That wasn't my question to the other poster..... it was you believe what Galloway said was acceptable
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If what he said was as you reported, ie. "If the by-election had been in February of 1940 or 41, would anyone seriously have condemned me for putting the crimes of the Holocaust at the centre of my election campaign?" then i don't see why it wouldn't be acceptable. He seems to be merely defending his decision to place the situation in Gaza at the centre of his campaign by pointing out that he wouldn't have been criticised in 1940 for putting the Holocaust front and centre.

Kuepper linked a Guardian article above, which explains the problems with the IHRA definition of antisemitism According to the Guardian:

"More than 100 Israeli and international civil society organisations have asked the United Nations to reject a controversial definition of antisemitism because it is being “misused” to protect Israel from legitimate criticism."
"Signatories include Israel’s largest human rights group, B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Israeli and Palestinian civil society groups."

The problem was with the examples, which are open to abuse and Jeremy Corbyn was heavily criticised at the time for spotting this and requesting that the examples should be changed or dropped, but he was right. Even the author of the document has said that it isn't fit for purpose.
 
Geoff_B said:
I agree he doesn’t reference that in as such words, but also feel your correct in the fact he knows exactly what he is doing.
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I think "he knows exactly what he is doing" slightly misrepresents what I was trying to say so I'll clarify.

I don't think what he said was antisemitic.

I do think he is sensible enough to not say things that could be construed as antisemitic by those (e.g. CAA) who try to find antisemitism everywhere.

I don't think he's trying to be clever and circumvent the 'rules'. I think he's being careful not to open himself up to accusations. There is a difference.
 
Scrote said:
I think "he knows exactly what he is doing" slightly misrepresents what I was trying to say so I'll clarify.

I don't think what he said was antisemitic.

I do think he is sensible enough to not say things that could be construed as antisemitic by those (e.g. CAA) who try to find antisemitism everywhere.

I don't think he's trying to be clever and circumvent the 'rules'. I think he's being careful not to open himself up to accusations. There is a difference.
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Ok thanks for clarifying your position.. I sit on the opposite side of the fence but that everyone has their own opinions 👍
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
Even the author of the document has said that it isn't fit for purpose.
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Tbf its more like the purpose isnt fit for the document. I don't think the author ever wrote it with the intention that it would be used in the way the Labour Party and some other organisations have adopted it.
 
SuperStu said:
Tbf its more like the purpose isnt fit for the document. I don't think the author ever wrote it with the intention that it would be used in the way the Labour Party and some other organisations have adopted it.
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No, he wrote it years earlier and then it was revived (probably hastily in 2016ish), but in 2023, the year that the Guardian article was written, he urged the American Bar Association to not adopt it.
 
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