Anti-Semitism

Denis MacShane Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[John Mann]

That is testimony to the CST’s approach. Undoubtedly, that powerful joint experience will strengthen the CST as well as its partners from other communities.

Another significant development that will be increasingly important in the future is the establishment, for the first time, of an Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism at Birkbeck college. I estimate that 400 people attended the inaugural lecture by Professor David Feldman, which is a significant number. The intellectual interrogation that is needed to draw on and analyse lessons from around the world is already of huge value to us, and we look forward to working closely with that institute. It is a landmark for this country. There is too much in London for my liking, but on this occasion I will excuse that, because Birkbeck is conveniently nearby. That is perhaps the only praise that London will receive from me in this Parliament.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

As an honorary fellow of Birkbeck college, I cannot allow that slightly anti-Bloomsbury square remark to pass unnoticed. However, I have been talking to vice-chancellors in the north of England, because I agree with my hon. Friend that the study of anti-Semitism is something that we should root into our university disciplines as well as in our schools.

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[John Mann]

The case that was prosecuted—the Sheppard and Whittle case—involved what we could call a Nazi website, hosted in the United States, but jihadist-style or simply offensive websites, allegedly coming from, for example, Saudi Arabia, are a major problem. The United States and Saudi Arabia are allies of ours. They are generally friendly and helpful countries. However, they have a different approach. In the United States, it is about the freedom of speech. We need an approach that moves forward this agenda. The interesting issue with the Sheppard and Whittle case is that we were able to prosecute in this country actions directly related to the use of hate sites abroad. If we could get such action fully entrenched in this country and developed across the European Union, it would have a significant practical impact, but it also would allow dialogue, be it with the Saudis or with the Americans, from a position of some strength in terms of what is there, so that we could attempt to eradicate all internet sites that are peddling race hate, from whatever direction they come. Of course, that is significant because it is the extremists, not the normal, general, common-sense people of this country, who are attracted to such sites.

Let me mention other priorities. I shall be reasonably brief on those, because I know that other hon. Members will want to discuss them. For Government, higher education is a top priority. Another organisation that we are delighted to co-operate with, the Union of Jewish Students, is having a lobby of Parliament. I hope that hon. Members in this Chamber and beyond will meet its representatives and hear at first hand their experiences of studying in universities. Our position is clear, but it is worth repeating. In an atmosphere that is widely recognised as the most tolerant in this tolerant and democratic country, the fact is that one group of students feels that it does not have the same freedoms as others. I have described that as a consequence of antisocial behaviour. It impacts on their ability to have the same freedoms as other students, and magnifies the importance of such problems well beyond what is seen in the rest of society. Those universities, as learning institutions, must therefore be exemplary in their approach. I hope that the Government will consider the successful agreement that has been negotiated and enacted at the university of Manchester. I do not declare an interest, because it is many years since I studied there and I am discussing current students and the present administration.

That model could be used in universities across the country—it could also be used abroad, not least in north America—to set the role and remit of universities and to say how students should complain and how the outside world, including us, should evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of the procedures that have been put in place. That is an important breakthrough, and I hope that the Government will give appropriate time and energy to it, as far too many of our university institutions are paralysed whenever there is a problem and do not know what to do. There is a model for universities, and they will receive our support.

With students wanting to study at university, we, as a democratic society, cannot have the kind of incidents that we saw at the London School of Economics in December. It was not only the comments of Abdel Bari Atwan that were unacceptable, because the behaviour that resulted from them was equally unacceptable. That is not tolerance, and it is not free speech. Protocols in universities, such as the one enacted by Manchester, need to be spread to all universities. If we get that this year, it will be a magnificent achievement for Parliament and an accolade for the Government, who will have our support in pushing the universities because the issue is important.

The Minister for Universities and Science has committed himself to making clear the Government’s position on speakers on campus, and we look forward to hearing what the Government have to say about that. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will commission a departmental review and update our freedom of speech guidance.

I shall speak next about elections. There has been controversy on elections, and there may be more today. I give an example. During the last election, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee explicitly targeted six Zionists. I believe that it regards Zionists as an insult. I made a lengthy submission to the Committee on Standards in Public Life on the subject, in which I asked whether it is fair in a democracy that a group from outside can spend resources targeting people in that way—whoever they target, and from whatever direction—because it puts them at an unfair disadvantage.

[Mr MacShane]

I was targeted by the Muslim Public Affairs Committee; its rather stupid leaflet said, “Vote BNP to get rid of MacShane”. An ultra-Islamist group was inviting the anti-Semitic BNP to dethrone me. It was not a problem in Rotherham, but it was in Oldham East and Saddleworth. It is an evil group, and my hon. Friend is right to draw attention to it.

[John Mann]

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is struggling with elections. We may need to write our own code of conduct this year on how elections should be run and what should happen if candidates believe that things have been done that they find inappropriate. There is a void there, and it crosses all parties. The issue is not in one direction, and it goes many different ways.

The main political parties, as well as the smaller ones, have a responsibility to ensure that candidates or complainants, including those from the community, have clear guidance on what they should do, both at the time and retrospectively. I fear that the problem is becoming too big, too quickly. Some claim success, however irrelevant their participation has been in the campaign, which emboldens more extreme action and more extreme language. If we can get agreement, we should publish our own code of practice this year outside the general election cycle. There are, of course, always elections, but we should do so well in advance of the next general election. It could be launched in the run up to the next election, with a lengthy lead-in to ensure that we get it right. That could provide a significant service. Attempting to do it may move things on in what is a tricky but rather indelicate area. If we do not, it will be to the detriment of all political parties, rather nastily and viciously, in elections to come.

I next highlight football. I do so because there is a huge danger in eastern Europe that the new Nazis will coalesce under the banner of white power using football, which may become a big problem in this country. They have not yet made huge inroads here, although groups of fanatics and thugs have made small ones using the internet. Immediately before the Olympics, the 2012 football championship will be hosted by Ukraine and Poland. It could be rather difficult, as there will be many opportunities for outrageous behaviour by those who choose deliberately to offend, and it can happen quickly and easily. Through the police and Home Office, we have great knowledge and expertise in dealing with football hooliganism and extremism. We need to lend more support to Poland and Ukraine to ensure that those countries are not caught short. It is a PR disaster waiting to happen, with extremists using the opportunity to spread their propaganda and to incite people.

I was asked by the Football Association 18 months ago to chair a working group on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, with many people in the football world involved. I politely asked the FA, which has a new chief executive, to respond to the report submitted by my working group, because in the big money world of football as well as at the grass roots there is a responsibility to ensure that our most inclusive of sports is inclusive at every level. It must act when people attempt to use what I regard as our national sport to perpetrate race hatred. Football should be in the lead, so I await the Football Association’s response. It is about time that it did so, and I hope that it does so productively and positively.

I speak now about the international agenda and Europe. An increasing number of people in eastern Europe, including some politicians, are attempting to equate the holocaust and what happened in their countries with what happened in Soviet times. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and I were heavily involved, as were others here today, in what could best be described as anti-Soviet or anti-communist activities, not least with the international trade union movement and other organisations. We have a long track record in that respect. We understand what happened in Soviet times, but it is fundamentally dangerous, wrong and inaccurate to equate the two.

Equating the two provides an excuse for what happened to the Jewish community in, for example, Lithuania, where 94% of its members were murdered in a short period, and where many Lithuanians were involved in murdering their fellow nationals. It is fundamentally wrong and dangerous to equate things in that way, and we need to challenge that practice, because the more it takes hold, the more difficult things will be for Jewish communities in those countries, and the easier it will be for extremists to ride on the back of false nationalism and whip up hysteria, as has already happened, not least in the Baltic states, as people campaign against the Jewish international media conspiracy, the Jewish bankers and so forth. Those are old concepts, but they are being used in the modern media in these countries.

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[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). I found nothing in his speech that I do not completely applaud. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), whose energetic, coherent and sterling work on anti-Semitism has been a model for parliamentarians around the world. I am grateful to him for bestowing on me the honour of chairing an inquiry into anti-Semitism.

Two or three months ago, my hon. Friend attended the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism in Canada. What reward did Canada receive for hosting that conference? On Sunday, there were horrible, brutal anti-Semitic attacks on four schools and a synagogue in Montreal. They took place in the Montreal riding—constituency—of Mount Royal where my good friend, Irwin Cotler, the former Justice Minister in the last Liberal Government of Canada, is the MP.

Professor Cotler is one of the world’s greatest human rights advocates and, as a Minister, he dedicated himself not only to combating anti-Jewish hatred but to wider human rights questions, including the defence of human rights activists in Palestine and Egypt as well as aboriginal Canadians. There is a move in Canada and elsewhere to nominate him for the Nobel peace prize, and I can think of no worthier recipient.

Two years ago, I had the pleasure of working with Professor Cotler in Geneva at the Durban 2 conference. The first Durban conference degenerated into an anti-Semitic hate fest. It had been called to combat racism around the world, but the only country that was denounced as racist was—surprise, surprise—Israel. Although I was a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister at the time, I was not responsible for that area. It was to Britain’s shame that we did not withdraw our delegation.

At Durban 2, our ambassador walked out as Iran’s President Ahmadinejad launched into one of his traditional appeals to Jewish hate. I hope that the Minister will assure the House that in the preparations for Durban 3, the UK will take the strongest position to ensure that the anti-Semitic elements in international political affairs will be kept in their ugly holocaust-denying and Israel-hating box and that the issues around the racism and Christianophobia that is endemic in many middle east countries get a full airing.

I must say to you Ms Clark and to my colleagues on the Front Benches that I have a parents’ evening at my daughter’s school, so I may not be here for the winding- up speeches, but believe me I will read Hansard very carefully.

I am concentrating on international affairs, because the two previous hon. Members spoke very adequately about what is happening in the UK and at the Department for Communities and Local Government. Before this debate, I checked on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website under the heading “anti-Semitism” and found that all the references were to the previous Government and the initiatives that were undertaken—I must stress that they were undertaken on an all-party basis—after the all-party parliamentary group against anti-Semitism made its report three years ago. Many of the recommendations are still relevant today.

We have far too many examples of hate preachers. The woman who attacked my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) was inspired by one such hate preacher. So, too, was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who studied at University College London. There he helped to organise a day of hate with leading anti-Jewish Islamists invited to take part. As previous speakers have said, we must ask why our vice-chancellors are so unwilling to take robust, clear action on this issue. On the whole, our campuses are fascist-free. The British National party is not welcome. Its core ideology is rooted in anti-Semitism, and its leader, Nick Griffin, has written widely to promote classic anti-Jewish themes, such as holocaust denial and accusations about secret Jewish cabals and lobbies wielding undue influence. Although we are happy to keep the BNP at bay, vice-chancellors do not take similar robust action against Islamist ideologues. I stress the word “Islamist” in its ideological sense as a political world view and not as the religion, Islam, which has the same rights as other religions and also the same obligation to be questioned and criticised by those who are concerned about the rise of religious politics across the world.

We also asked for greater involvement by the Foreign Office in monitoring the rise of political anti-Semitism in Europe and on the internet. Today, Baroness Warsi is to make remarks about attacks on Muslims with a reference to anti-Muslim remarks now leaving the dinner table and going public. In April, she told people in south Yorkshire that she did not want to see more Muslim MPs or Muslim Lords because

“Muslims that go to Parliament don’t have ‘asool’.”

Asool is Urdu for “morals” or “principles”. I am glad that she is now defending the Muslim community against unfair attacks. I hope she also tells her audience that anti-Semitism has never been returned to dinner table coarseness and that it is out there as public discourse. We have heard the casual remarks, such as the one by the European Commissioner Karel de Gucht, who said that it is impossible to have a conversation with a Jew about Israel. The German central banker Thilo Sarrazin, said that Jews have different genes. If those comments were made in the 1930s, we would see them as a historical reminder of the anti-Semitism of that period. However, those remarks were made in the past 12 months by mainstream, senior, responsible, moderate Social Democratic, Liberal and Conservative Europeans.

[Mrs Ellman]

Will my right hon. Friend reaffirm that anti-Semitism is shown in a wide variety of ways? Will he join me in condemning a statement made by a former Member of this House, who is chair of Labour Friends of Palestine? His statement was made at a meeting in this House. It was reported in the media and not denied. He said that there are

“long tentacles of Israel in this country who are funding election campaigns and putting money in the British political system for their own ends.”

Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is, or is very close to, anti-Semitism?

[Mr MacShane]

That is an intolerable remark, as I told the former Member himself. It is perfectly possible to criticise Israel and to defend the cause of the Palestinian people without making a 1930s-style allegation. We can see in Europe the rise of political anti-Semitism. We have many open anti-Semites in the European Parliament, supported by the two Nazi MEPs from Great Britain.

In Hungary this week, we have had the surreal spectacle of a court allowing a convicted Nazi war criminal, Sandor Kapiro, to sue for defamation Dr Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office. I know that Hungary is not the home of Kafka but this is Kafkaesque, as the Hungarian authorities are allowing a Nazi war criminal to persecute a Jew whose job is to expose and bring to justice the last remnants of the perpetrators of the holocaust.

Today the Prime Minister is hosting a number of right-wing parties from Baltic states at Downing street. I welcome the outreach to Baltic and Nordic states, but I hope that he is telling their leaders that the attempts by many of the conservative right-wing parties in the Nordic countries in particular and in the Baltic states to make an equivalence between the holocaust and the crimes of communism—the so-called “double genocide” campaign—is odious and offensive, and it is condemned by all democratic parties in Europe. Lord Janner of Braunstone has written eloquently about this issue.

Given my own family background, I certainly do not need any lessons on the evils of communism and Stalinism in eastern Europe. However, this downplaying and devaluation of the holocaust is a cold-blooded tactic by politicians, some of whose pre-war ancestors were openly anti-Semitic. The European right in many of the Baltic states is nationalistic and populist. Latvian right wingers celebrate the Waffen SS. Mr Michal Kaminski, the Polish nationalist politician, says that he will apologise for what happened to Jews on Polish soil when Jews apologise to Poland for what they did during world war two. Frankly, that is unacceptable language. There is very great concern in the Jewish community—tiny as it is—in those countries about this growing attempt to airbrush out of history the crimes against Jews between 1941 and 1945.

I quote Lord Janner:

“For Jews in Europe during the Holocaust there was little complication. The truth was and still remains that the Soviet and Allied forces were the heroes and that Hitler’s Nazis were the perpetrators and the war criminals. Any attempt to pervert this history is an attack on the memory of the hundreds of thousands of Jews from that region who were murdered including many of my own family, who were in Lithuania and Latvia.”

Lord Janner is right. Just as the Islamists seek to devalue the holocaust as part of their ideological assault on the right of Israel to exist, so too elements of the ultra-nationalist and populist right in Baltic, Nordic and eastern European countries seek to devalue the holocaust as a unique event to justify their own anti-Jewish ideology of the past and, in some cases, of the present.

The British ambassador in Lithuania, along with other ambassadors, signed a letter to the Lithuanian Government protesting about the “double genocide” phenomenon. I asked the Foreign Office to publish that letter but to my surprise it has not, praying in aid pre-WikiLeaks rules about secrecy and confidentiality. I think that it would do the Foreign Office no harm at all and in fact every credit to publish that letter. I know Foreign Office officials and other Government officials, and they want to work hard to promote the matter as solidly as possible.

I will stop shortly to allow others to speak. Very briefly, however, I want to highlight some sentences from the European Union’s formal definition of anti-Semitism. It is an important international document that tries to explain what anti-Semitism is and it was agreed after many debates and discussions a few years ago by all parts of the European Community. It says, among other things, that it is anti-Semitic to make

“mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective—such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”

We still hear that today.

The EU definition continues, saying that anti-Semitic activities include:

“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)…Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust. Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations…Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination…by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour. Applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation…Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

I will sit down shortly, but I could bring to the House cartoons and articles in our main newspapers—our liberal newspapers, our left newspapers and our conservative newspapers—that draw precisely that moral equivalence between Israel and Nazism, which attempt to typecast all Jews as supporters of Israel and thus having a double loyalty.

The battle is intensifying; it is now about the demonisation and criminalisation of Israel. I salute my friend Ian McEwan for going to Israel to accept a literary prize. I want to see more academic, journalistic and political exchange with Israel, and indeed with its neighbouring states and the people of Palestine and their leaders. I had hoped that the marvellous work of the all-party group against anti-Semitism would somehow come to an end. Today I find that its work is more necessary than ever.

[Katy Clark (in the Chair)]

I remind colleagues that a considerable number of Members have asked to speak. Unless contributions to the debate are significantly shorter, I will not be able to call quite a number of colleagues.

[Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)]

Thank you, Ms Clark. I will try to be as brief as I possibly can.

I thank and pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) for securing the debate. I particularly pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw for everything that he does in his role as chairman of the all-party group against anti-Semitism.

A year ago in the corresponding debate to this one, I spoke about a recent visit that I had made thanks to that wonderful organisation, the Holocaust Educational Trust; I congratulate Karen Pollock of the trust on all the work that it does—long may it continue. I went with a group of students from my constituency to Auschwitz. Not long before that I had visited Theresienstadt, another of the concentration camps. When I was at Auschwitz, I shed tears at what I saw.

Little did I know then what I was in store for a few months later and today I will talk through what I personally experienced during the last general election. It was not something that I expected and I sincerely hope that the experience is not repeated for me, or any other candidate or Member of the House.

After a day of campaigning, I was walking back to my car when I was approached by two young gentlemen—I use the word “gentlemen” in its loosest sense—who said to me that I was a “Jewish pig” and “should die”. I have always been someone who has tended to use humour whenever I am particularly upset, so I said to them, “I’ll put you down as a possible. You haven’t quite made your mind up about how you are voting”. They were as shocked by that comment as I was to hear what was coming out of my mouth rather than running away and indeed they went. The significance of that incident was that they hated me because I was a Jew.

A fair number of my constituents—nearly a third—are Jewish. I also have Muslims, Christians and members of every other religion in my constituency and we live in harmony. It was not the first occasion that I have ever experienced anti-Semitism, but it was one of the first major occasions.

The anti-Semitism did not stop there; it got worse. A leaflet went out about me, saying that I was an enemy of Islam. I will briefly relay what else was said in that leaflet, which is on the internet if anyone wants to see it. People just need to google my name and the leaflet about me will come up. It said that I was an enemy of Islam because I had said in a speech—in fact, here in Westminster Hall—that President Ahmadinejad was a mad man. I stand by that comment. The leaflet said that I had said that no sane-minded person wanted war and that both Jew and Arab should live in peace but Israel had to be recognised as a country, with secure boundaries. Again, I stand by that comment. The leaflet said that I had said that Britain should buy weapons from Israel. I did not say that. Various other accusations were made in the leaflet, finishing with the claim that I was an enemy of Islam. Out of interest, the picture that was used on the leaflet seems to have me wearing a skull cap. Obviously, I wear a skull cap. I perhaps visit the synagogue a little more often than my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), but not as often as one should. None the less, that was the picture used, obviously showing that I am Jewish.

Also, I was the recipient of an e-mail saying that I should be stoned to death. I said that I could possibly accept it if someone did not elect me because they did not like me, but stoning me to death was a little on the extreme side. However, I am not ashamed to tell hon. Members that one night at home I sat down and cried. I was really upset by everything that had happened during the election campaign, which was not right. It is legitimate for someone to want to criticise someone else’s party or politics, but not their religion. I am proud to be a Member of Parliament, British and Jewish, and there is no conflict there whatsoever.

I want to give thanks to some people who supported me through that difficult period, in particular Peter Terry, the then Metropolitan police borough commander for my area, for the police protection that he provided. I had to have police officers with me at the hustings, and police patrols and a panic button at my house, which was not fair on my family, who did not stand for public office. I also want to thank the Community Security Trust, the Board of Deputies, Conservative Friends of Israel and, indeed, Labour Friends of Israel, for their phone calls and support when I was particularly down.

Do I know who was behind all this? I have some shrewd ideas, but I would never make accusations that I cannot prove. They, however, know full well who they are. In the name of politics, I can only say that this place and its politics, of whatever party, are, and deserve, better than that. I ask the Minister to take to the Government my view that we need to go a little further than the hon. Member for Bassetlaw has suggested. We need firm laws, covering every candidate in every seat, about what is acceptable and what is unacceptable behaviour towards others, whether they be Jews, Muslims or Christians.

I also want to thank the local synagogues, and the national Union of Jewish Students who, at a difficult time, gave me a great deal of support in words—I am not talking about anything to do with elections. I pay tribute to the British League of Muslims and the Hainault and Chigwell Muslims, who put up “Vote Lee Scott” banners and went out campaigning for me. As the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) has rightly said, that has nothing to do with Islam; it is to do with far right-wing people of any religion trying to persecute others.

I return to the question of what we can do about this. One of the most important things that we can do is education. The work of the Holocaust Educational Trust is vital, but this goes beyond that, because there is the massive problem of what young people hear and see on the internet. Forgive me, Ms Clark, because I am going to break with parliamentary tradition and call someone from another party, “my hon. Friend”. I have done this before and have got into trouble, as I will again. I am talking about the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), and her work. She is far braver than I in taking a stand, because a third of my constituents are Jewish. A website has gone up with pictures of the hon. Lady and, in fact, of virtually everyone in this room, and it says that we are stooges of Israel, and vile people who should be destroyed. It has gone even further and put up pictures of MPs who are no longer even alive.

[Mr MacShane]

Those people altered my Wikipedia entry to say that I was a secret Jew, which, as a Catholic, I can disprove. I was, however, enormously flattered and honoured.

[Mr Scott]

I am happy to welcome the right hon. Gentleman as an honorary Jew, but there is no need for him to prove to us today whether he is one. I am sure that that would be ruled out of order by Ms Clark.

I finish by saying that there is a lot to be done. We have again seen the rise of anti-Semitism, but the one thing that we must be solid about is that we must not be bowed or change what we stand for—our beliefs and values. I have no doubt that, by staying united, we will defeat this, as we have done in the past. I also wish to give my apologies, as I have to leave the debate before it finishes to return to my constituency.