Anti-Semitism

Louise Ellman Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to hold this debate under your chairship, Ms Clark. We thank you for the appropriate and modern way in which you have consulted on how things should happen, which was noted and appreciated by all present.

I am pleased to see, for a Thursday afternoon, a significant attendance from all parts of the House. Many more would have liked to be present and to participate, not least Ministers and shadow Ministers who have informed me of their support for the debate and for the work of the all-party parliamentary group against anti-Semitism but who, under the conventions of Parliament, are required not to participate in a Back-Bench debate in Back-Bench time. Nevertheless, putting that on the record is appropriate.

More than five years ago, I commissioned the all-party inquiry into anti-Semitism, so ably chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), who will be participating in the debate, if he catches the Chair’s eye. Much progress has been made over those five years, but much more remains to be done.

The basis of the inquiry, which included four different parties among the 14 elected Members comprising the panel, is that parliamentarians, like it or not, have a leadership role. Our responsibility is, first and foremost, to ensure that our own Parliament is free of prejudice, including any prejudiced remarks, whether made calculatedly to offend or ignorantly. Part of our success is that parliamentarians in this Parliament, even if any of them ever considered overstepping the mark in acceptable discourse, would step back. In fact, we have a clear understanding of what is acceptable, which is a marker for the rest of the country.

Our robust approach, first and foremost, has been to take responsibility in our own parties—although we work on a cross-party basis—for sorting out issues of racism and, specifically, anti-Semitism. In other words, we sort out our own parties before pointing the finger at our opponents. As has been stated on the Floor of the House, therefore, successes in fact have not required publicity precisely because of what we might call the re-education of those who choose to depart from the norms of normal debate—they are re-educated in their own parties—which is exactly how political parties should take responsibility. It is a credit to all parties, throughout the House, that they have been prepared to live up to their responsibilities—even so, more can be done.

In the previous Parliament, as well as the current one—under the previous and current Governments—I and others in all parties have been rightly prepared not to pick holes in the minutiae when dealing with Ministers who have taken what we want forward. We have praised them the more they have taken small risks to move things on, such as taking on civil servants and the establishment. We have been prepared to back them and not to use the normal foil in debate, criticising when everything we call for is not met.

Such behaviour is appropriate and, in that spirit, let me commend the responsible Minister in the current Government who, like his predecessors in other Governments, has been prepared to go significantly beyond the call of normal ministerial duty in the attention, the seriousness and—I do not think this is overstating it—the boldness in pushing forward the agenda that we need pushing forward. Although appropriate, that moral integrity and political courage have been appreciated well beyond parliamentarians.

As an all-party group, we will continue to back Ministers who are prepared to do things. If their initiatives are not as successful as they and we would like, we will not criticise them, but we will praise them for being prepared to take difficult initiatives, instead of sitting on the fence when it is easier to do that sometimes.

There has also been significant support from civil servants—Sally Sealey and Neil O’Connor of the Department for Communities and Local Government spring to mind, as well as others working alongside them. They have made a significant input in their briefings to Ministers, which wise Ministers have read, absorbed and acted on. Doubtless, they will continue to do so.

With such backing, we have seen other Ministers do things beyond the normal call of duty—although they are normally my political opponents, that ought to be put on the record—such as the Secretary of State for Education, with whom I often clash. However, on issues relating to anti-Semitism, he has done more than one would normally expect of a Minister in his position. That should go on the positive record for all parties.

The Minister for Universities and Science, who has a difficult portfolio when it comes to anti-Semitism, has also given us great encouragement in his months in office by his incisive understanding of the issues as they affect his portfolio and by his preparedness to take action. We commend those Ministers in particular, for being ahead of the game. We encourage others, who are doing their bit, to be ahead of the game, too, because anti-Semitism remains a major issue in this country and worldwide.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend in praising the efforts of Ministers in dealing with the issue. However, is he aware of the growing concern in the British Jewish community about rising levels of anti-Semitism, including anti-Semitic rhetoric? Do Ministers have a role in combating that?

[John Mann]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will answer her question later in my remarks, when I will discuss such issues.

As a long-standing and internationally recognised expert and leader in combating anti-Semitism, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) is an example to us all. I thank her and use the opportunity of her intervention to advertise the meetings we have convened throughout the Jewish community since we received the Government response to our work as an all-party committee in December.

Locations for the meetings include Liverpool, where my hon. Friend is speaking, and certainly Leeds, Manchester, Oxford and London, but I will have forgotten some of the others. Members of Parliament from all parties are participating, not just explaining our good deeds, as it were, but taking on questions, comments and feedback from members of the Jewish community. Our first such event in Manchester was a huge success. It was well attended, and the rigorous debate by parliamentarians and the general public was well received. There will be more such events, which are an important aside to our work.

We must also put on the record our thanks to various groups. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and the support that I receive both indirectly and directly from the Parliamentary Committee Against Anti-Semitism Foundation, chaired by Stephen Rubin, and the support given by staff and others to the work of the all-party group against anti-Semitism. All members of the group receive that support, and I include it in my declaration.

We are grateful for and welcome the support and advice that we receive from the Community Security Trust. Gerald Ronson, Richard Benson and their colleagues ensure that we engage with the issues and are alert to the problems at all times. The trust does a magnificent job that other countries could learn from. The Board of Deputies of British Jews has worked closely with us, as has the Holocaust Educational Trust, which has involved parliamentarians and their young constituents in an effective programme to educate young people about our history. Our appreciation for those bodies is significant.

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[John Mann]

Betwixt my constituency and that of my right hon. Friend is Sheffield. Perhaps one of the universities there will choose to get involved in this. That would be, if not an immediate priority, a welcome development in the future.

Let me put on the record some of the ways in which things have moved forward. Police forces record anti-Semitic hate crimes, and the first official statistics on anti-Semitic hate crime were released by the Association of Chief Police Officers on 30 November 2010. There is the Crown Prosecution Service review into the disparity between anti-Semitic incidents and the joint Government and charitable sector inter-faith school linking programme, championed by the Pears Foundation. Sir Andrew Burns has been appointed as the UK’s first envoy for post-holocaust issues. He is a great champion, and his work will have an impact. We welcome that appointment and look forward to working closely with him over the coming years. There has been international replication of our model of an all-party inquiry. Canada, Italy and Germany have all, in different ways, replicated what we have done. Following the successful London conference, there was a successful Canadian-led conference in Ottawa, addressed by the Canadian Prime Minister and many others. Indeed, 51 countries participated. We are making a mark in showing our successes but also being honest about our failures. Others are picking up on that and learning from their successes and failures as well.

The Government recently announced that the burden on Jewish parents in paying for school security guards would be addressed with Government money. The inquiry recognised that as a priority. It is not a gesture but significant practical support from Government.

We have been very active and have more members than ever before in Parliament. In addition, successive Governments have been highly and appropriately engaged on the issue. Nevertheless, 2009 was the worst year for anti-Semitic incidents that the CST has ever recorded, and 2010 is not likely to be much better. Those incidents continue, and often the issues are linked to the ongoing conflict in the middle east. It behoves the Government to ensure that at times of increased tension, communication plans are in place to keep community cohesion at its most effective. Of course, the attempts to boycott Israel have been repeatedly denounced by successive Governments. In response to such attempts, the Britain-Israel research and academic exchange initiative, with Foreign and Commonwealth Office support, is a practical step towards increased, rather than reduced, academic collaboration, and a step forward towards peace. We commend successive Governments for their approach to that.

More progress is needed on a few issues, one of which is internet hate. We look forward to the promised ministerial conference, convened via the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, on internet hate. That will be significant, and we look forward to guidelines being published on establishing mechanisms for complaint, which will empower those in the communities directly affected. We also look forward to a potential American initiative that will involve meeting directly and challenging the Googles and Microsofts of this world on precisely what they are, and are not, doing, to try to ensure that there is consistency of approach at a high level. I am certain that if our colleagues in the US Congress can organise such meetings, we will in some way be able to get representatives to participate in them, because the internet is an important priority in countering race hate.

The position is similar with newspapers. I noted the potential best practice emanating from the Manchester Evening News, which has a proactive moderating policy on the blogs and comment pages that it runs. All too often, however, newspapers say that it is beyond them to moderate highly offensive and inflammatory remarks. I do not think that that is beyond them; I think that there is a duty and responsibility in that respect. With regard to the online press in particular, we need to see that as a priority in the next year.

I implore the Minister to take these issues back to the Government, unless he has more information for us. The issues include reviewing the Press Complaints Commission guidelines to ensure that groups as well as individuals can register complaints. The areas of the media and the internet are big priorities in the next year. We are looking for more Government action to move the agenda on, not least because the Attorney-General’s office has successfully managed to prosecute those who have used vile and racist internet sites hosted abroad. We have made a breakthrough that the rest of the world is interested in and which is of huge significance, but we need to develop beyond that. It must not just be a case of isolated prosecutions that are important because they have been successful.

The Government need to take the issue directly to the European Union. Is it beyond the European Union to have some common standards relating to the internet that would greatly enhance what has happened in this country? That should be within our reach. I appreciate that there are different views on how good and useful, or useless, an institution it is, but whatever one’s views, it exists and we can agree to resource it amply. However, despite the history of the origins of the EU, the Commission has never, ever seen fighting anti-Semitism as part of its remit, which must change. Addressing the internet would be a good start, and dealing with education would also be significant. That needs to be in the work programme that the European Commissioners have every time that they are appointed, that the European Parliament can comment on, and that, as necessary, the Council of Ministers can be involved in.

[Mrs Ellman]

I applaud my hon. Friend for drawing attention to the very serious phenomenon of internet hate. Does he agree that messages of anti-Semitic hate, often coming from Islamic sources, should be challenged in a much stronger way than they are at the moment?

[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.

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[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing the debate. Although I would not want to go into a dark alley with him to discuss party funding, I would be on the barricades with him on this issue. Often, when I look at people, I wonder who would be first to lead the resistance if there ever was, God forbid, a dictatorship, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would be right there. The work he has done over a number of years, which I watched before I was elected to the House, will be remembered by the Jewish community.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer). I know his constituency well because I grew up there. His community is very lucky that he is its representative and specialises in these issues.

As I have always seen it, there are three kinds of anti-Semitism. First, there is the low-level, under-the-carpet discrimination. It is the kind of anti-Semitism that happens at a dinner party. A person walks outside the room, and someone says, “Let’s give him a ham sandwich.” Everyone titters, but when he goes back into the room he does not know that anything has happened. That dinner-party anti-Semitism also manifests itself in harsh criticism of Israel, which is out of all proportion to the criticism of any other country. Given that it is out of proportion, I would argue that it is sometimes used as a fig leaf by people who just do not like Jews.

Secondly, there is skinhead anti-Semitism: thugs smashing up graveyards, violence and intimidation, and the criminal damage done to synagogues around the world. Dare I say it, that is the easiest kind of anti-Semitism to deal with because we at least know what we are dealing with.

Today, however, the most worrying, pernicious, dogmatic and dangerous form of anti-Semitism comes from extreme Islamism. Yes, it is true that extreme Islamists do not just attack Jews—the massacre of 21 Christians in Egypt on new year’s day is a tragic reminder of that. As we know, the free world faces a major assault on its values. Whether we are talking about Baha’is in Iran, Christians in Egypt or Jews in Israel and elsewhere in the world, the extreme Islamists believe that theirs is the only view that deserves to survive. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and 7/7 were not just attacks on Britain and America, but were explicitly designed as an assault on western civilisation itself.

Islamism, by the way, should never be confused with Islam. Islam is a religion, practised by millions of citizens. Islamism, however, is a revolutionary political doctrine, supported by a small minority, whose aim is to overthrow democratic Government and replace it with religious autocracy.

I raised the threat posed by Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitism in early-day motion 1145. Today, however, I want to focus on the problem of extreme Islamism in the UK. I want to make four key points. First, numerous factions and splinter groups, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, operate in the UK. They call for the eradication of Israel, but they have not been banned. Moderate Muslims, Jews, Christians and members of all parties have called for the Government to proscribe Hizb ut-Tahrir because its website, leaders and literature frequently promote racism and anti-Semitism, call suicide bombers “martyrs” and urge all Muslims to kill Jewish people. Hizb ut-Tahrir is an extremely destructive group, which should no longer be appeased.

Secondly, there is extremism in universities. Late last year MI5 identified as many as 39 university campuses as vulnerable to violent extremism. The London School of Economics, as has been mentioned, has increasingly serious problems not just with students but with its professional staff. The involvement, for example, of Dr John Chalcraft and Professor Martha Mundy with its middle east centre is worrying. Those two senior LSE academics are extreme advocates of the movement to boycott Israel on the international stage. As the organisation Student Rights has shown, they have a track record of intense hostility to Israel and the Jewish people. As with many so-called study centres for the middle east, much of the funding flows from mysterious trusts and foundations in Islamic dictatorships, whose accounts are not transparent. A further example is the LSE’s Palestine society, which is soon to host a visit by Ahron Cohen, a leading anti-Zionist, whose conference expenses are usually paid for by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, and who stated in The Sunday Times that the Jews who died in the holocaust deserved it. Those people do not help the debate. They do not promote peace, and the LSE has a duty to explain why it allows those things to continue.

Thirdly, there is radicalisation in some mosques. I recently had the privilege of going to Kurdistan with the all-party group on the Kurdistan region in Iraq. The Prime Minister of Kurdistan told me that he had been to England and visited a mosque in the north; he said that if he had seen that kind of mosque in Kurdistan he would have shut it down overnight, because of its aggressive and intolerant teachings. Kurdistan is very progressive, and supportive of the Jewish community. We all know the reports that Richard Reid and Jermaine Lindsay who triggered the King’s Cross explosion on 7/7 spent considerable time together at Brixton mosque in south London.

Finally, and most alarmingly, there is a creeping culture of appeasement in Whitehall. Whether that is a push to create artificial Muslim organisations, such as the Muslim Council of Britain, or civil servants going out of their way to appease radical Islamists, it is a major worry.

[Mrs Ellman]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that the anti-Semitism that he describes is rarely opposed by those who declare themselves anti-racist?

[Robert Halfon]

As always, the hon. Lady puts her finger on the button. She has a strong track record in dealing with those issues, and I agree with her completely.

Hon. Members may recall that last autumn the director general of the office for security and counter-terrorism, Mr Charles Farr, was reported as pledging his support for the extremist Mr Zakir Naik to enter the country. That was in complete opposition to the views of the Home Secretary, who barred Mr Naik from entering the UK. We also hear in the news today that Ken Livingstone is now an employee of the Iranian Government’s English propaganda channel, Press TV.

What are the effects of extremist culture in the UK? One consequence, which I raised with the Prime Minister, is that Britain has become an exporter of terrorism. From Afghanistan to Sweden to Israel, extreme Islamists from the UK have been travelling abroad with the intention of causing mayhem and murder. Closer to home, we all remember the attack on the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). In the Jewish community there is a constant climate of fear. There are growing reports, as has been mentioned, of Jewish students being spat at and beaten up, and having their rooms vandalised, and the incidence of recorded anti-Semitic events on university campuses has spiked in recent years. The CST recorded nearly 1,000 major anti-Semitic incidents in 2009—the highest annual total since it began records in 1984. Guards are now posted outside many synagogues and Jewish schools. Hate literature and terrorist propaganda are now sold openly in many book stalls or religious outlets.

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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.