Antisemitism in Modern Society

Ivan Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ivan Lewis (Bury South) (Ind)]

This debate comes at a time of unprecedented anxiety among the Jewish community in this country. A significant majority increasingly worry about their safety and security here, and they question whether their children and grandchildren have a future in the country they love. Yes, this is partially the result of a record number of antisemitic incidents, as reported by the Community Security Trust, and it is also because of the eternal threat from the far right and fundamentalist terrorism, which means that Jewish schools require permanent security guards and security fences, but it is mainly provoked by the fear that the Leader of the Opposition could become Prime Minister of this country.

That is distressing for the community, but it is heart- breaking for those of us whose lives and life chances have been shaped by both our Jewish and Labour identities. How the Labour party, a party that has always had anti-racism as a core value, has got itself into this position is both tragic and extraordinary, and I will devote my contribution to that today.

The current leadership have enabled it by associating for decades with people whose hatred for capitalism has included false assertions about the alleged malign influence of powerful Jews. The problem is not only their association with such people but their refusal to condemn them and call out their antisemitism. People who were previously involved on the fringes of mainstream politics are now members of the Labour party.

Then there is the leadership’s long-standing support for the hard left’s demonisation of Zionism and its global strategy to equate Zionism with racism and to bastardise the word “Zionism”. In the hard left’s world view, the west is the problem, especially the US, and Israel is a proxy of the US in the middle east, where it does not belong.

In reality, Zionism is the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their own state. It is not expansionism, aggression or the policy of any particular Israeli Government. Many Zionists, including me, oppose settlement expansion and hope that, at some stage in the future, there will be leaders on all sides with the authority and credibility to create the conditions for a two-state solution.

The problem is that those in the current Labour leadership have always believed that the creation of Israel was a catastrophe and, whatever their protestations, favour a one-state solution—Palestine, not Israel. This is in stark contrast to their campaigning for the rights of minorities around the world to self-determination. So in their world view, Jews are the only minority who do not have that right to self-determination. Israel is singled out and demonised when human rights abuses and lack of democracy in many other countries are on a much greater scale, including countries deified by the hard left. Jewish people are held responsible individually and collectively for alleged actions of the Israeli Government.

After a summer when the Labour party was engulfed in a perfect storm as a result of its refusal to accept the internationally agreed definition of antisemitism, what was the reaction of the party leader? It was to go to a meeting of the party’s national executive with his own proposed amendment that people should have the right to say that the creation and existence of the state of Israel is a racist endeavour. In other words, based on this definition, the leader of the Labour party supports people’s right to be antisemitic. This is extraordinary.

Then, we must consider the long-term support for terrorist organisations who kill and incite the murder of Jews—Hamas and Hezbollah. Of course, there is a perfectly respectable argument to be made for talking to terrorist groups to persuade them to end violence and become part of political and peace processes, but with neither Hamas nor Hezbollah, or the IRA, was this the objective of the Leader of the Opposition. His interactions were clearly to show solidarity with their cause and hence legitimise their use of violence in pursuit of their goals. That is the hard truth. Because of this, how can Labour, under his leadership, tackle the “cancer” of antisemitism when many of the accusations refer to people who articulate views he shares and their loyalty to the leader takes precedence over the party’s anti-racist values?

Why should this matter to the vast majority of UK Jews? It is quite simply because Israel is our best, and perhaps only, safe haven against the persecution Jews have suffered in every generation through history, most recently, with the pogroms of Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the horrors of the holocaust only 80 years ago. Jews’ fear of persecution is based on historical and contemporary facts, not irrationality or paranoia. Even in civilised France, we have seen tens of thousands of Jews leave our neighbouring European Union country in the past 20 years because of their direct experiences of antisemitism.

I salute my former colleagues who have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community. But it has made me sick to the stomach to observe the silence of some in the party and, in other cases, the denial of the problem or attempts to smear those who have spoken out. The abuse and threats meted out to my courageous hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) have disgusted most decent people. Instead of empathy and support, the response of the hard left was to call a vote of no confidence in her—and they call themselves socialists! Quite simply, if all this has happened in the party, imagine what would happen in our country if the right hon. Gentleman ever became Prime Minister. That is why UK Jews are afraid, and why I urge my friends and former colleagues to examine their consciences and act to put an end to this shameful chapter in the Labour party’s history. Antisemitism is not some second-class form of racism. A party rooted in the values of equality and anti-discrimination cannot collude with racism as a price worth paying for chasing an election victory.

[Several hon. Members rose—]