The venom in both the British and
American parties stem from the radical left, affiliated with an imported
ideology, a red-green alliance, exploiting the political turmoil to advance
their agenda. It is an agenda that will bring ruin to both countries.
In Britain, the failure of the
ruling party to satisfy the demand of the people, namely an affirmative
withdrawal from Europe, known as Brexit, gave rise to the radical left Labour
Party with ideas that will bring social and economic disaster to Britain.
In America, a country ripped
apart by a resentful Democratic Party, reeling after the embarrassing defeat of
their revered candidate to an outsider in the 2016 Presidential election,
opened the door to a new radical left with ideas and ideologies that will bring
social and economic ruin to the United States.
Out of the confusion of both
countries, dark voices began to be heard.
In Britain, the volume of blatant
Jew hatred at local and national level within the left-wing Labour Party was
met with protest by people within the party and by representatives of the
British Jewish community to little effect. Even the demand for the Labour Party
to adopt the full version of the official IHRC definition of anti-Semitism was answered
by the adoption of a doctored version after a very public struggle.
In America, as in Britain,
anti-Semitic tropes are heard within the opposition party by newly elected members
of Congress. In both cases, the targets were Israel and Jews. In both cases, the
rhetoric stereotyped Jewish money and power, and the Jewish State as an evil
and illegitimate entity.
In both England and America, Jews
have, traditionally, found political homes in the British Labour Party and in
the American Democratic Party.
Decades ago, both parties
harbored the working class, and Jewish immigrants, fleeing the Holocaust, found
political shelter there as they assimilated. As they prospered, they remained
loyal to the parties they had adopted.
Both parties supported the desire
of the Jewish people for self-determination in their ancient homeland and the
reconstituted State of Israel. It was the right and moral thing to do,
particularly after the horrors of the Holocaust.
Jews expressed their enthusiasm
for both parties by voting for and supporting them. An American Jews saying was,
“You’re born a Democrat, and you die a Democrat.” The same applied to
Jewish Labour Party members.
Jews became donors and delegates,
rising to high positions in both parties. They were patriotic and effective
leaders.
When we look at the British Labour
Party today it is difficult to believe that only four years ago it had a Jewish
leader, Ed Miliband. Now look at it today.
It is rife with anti-Semites at
all levels.
Joan Ryan, a non-Jewish Member of
Parliament, told the AIPAC Conference in March, “Why did I, a non-Jew,
travel to your conference to tell you this? I did so to remind you that things
can change quickly. I would never have believed, just three years ago, that the
party which backed the Jewish homeland even before the Balfour Declaration
would have sunk so low so fast.”
She spoke at AIPAC, but she was addressing
the Democratic Party that is experiencing the early signs of anti-Semitism dressed
up in Anti-Zionism. She was telling them that things can deteriorate very rapidly
when anti-Semitism is allowed to spread in a political party.
She spoke about the downward spiral
of Jew and Israel hatred that has infested her party, a party she recently
walked away from after forty years as a member.
Why did she leave, rather than
fight the anti-Semitism from her position as a leading member and a prominent
parliamentarian? Because she, like so
many others, found that confronting the ogre from within was a desperately
useless battle. Instead of admitting the problem and solve it there was a
resistance against her protest from within her party.
Joan Ryan admitted that, “despite the best
efforts of some decent members, it is riddled with anti-Semitism. It now seeks
to demonize and delegitimize Israel.”
We can see the new anti-Semitism,
loosely guised as anti-Israelism, infecting the Democratic Party. That party is
also failing to adequately fix the problem.
Her party, Ryan told AIPAC, was “now
led by a man who proudly declares Hamas and Hezbollah to be his friends. And
so, along with eight members of Parliament, we made a choice. We decided that
words were simply not enough. We walked away from the Labour Party.”
The Democratic Party now has new
representatives in Congress that consider Hamas their friends.
Joan Ryan and her colleagues have
been joined by many others, both Jewish and non-Jewish veterans of a party they
once loved, who left because of the grip on the party of those who harbor
disdain for Jews and Israel.
Americans should be made aware of
a dangerous phenomenon in the increasingly hard left British Labour Party. There
is a Soviet-style purging of party members that do not toe the party line and show
total loyalty to the party and its leader.
In the Soviet Union such people were shamed, or disappeared. In Britain,
they are de-selected by branch officials, thereby overruling the will of the
voter.
Brits vote for their individual
parliamentary representatives at local level. But, with the anti-Semitism
scandal rocking the party, the party has struck back at the protesters, shaming
and ejecting them. It is called “de-selection.” In effect, the local branch committee
can remove a duly elected member on the grounds of bringing the party into
disrepute. Protesting anti-Semitism within the party or criticizing Corbyn can
lead to an elected member being thrown out of the party. It has echoes of
Soviet-style tactics and, in essence, is anti-democratic.
Luciana Berger, a prominent
Jewish Member of Parliament, said that her Labour Party had become “institutionally
anti-Semitic.” She received abusive
anti-Semitic insults and death threats to the point that she needed a permanent
security team to protect her from members of her own party. She was called “a
disruptive Zionist” and worse. She faced two votes of no-confidence from
the branch officials at her Liverpool Waverley constituency. In challenging
this attempt to purge her, she said that she had made "no
secret that, as a Jewish woman representing a city with a Jewish community, I
have been deeply disturbed by the lack of response from Jeremy Corbyn as party
leader and many in the wider leadership of the party to the anti-Semitism that
stains our party."
Unable to quell the
hate, or bring her party to adequately address the problem, Berger led a group
of seven Labour MPs out of the party and formed an independent group within
Parliament.
This flight of
traditional Labour members has led to them being replaced by hardened leftists
who vow allegiance to their Hamas and Hezbollah supporting leader and to their
local party officials, making it a less tolerant party.
How depth of
radicalism in the British Labour Party could be seen at their last annual
conference. In voting for their top ten
policy priorities, Palestine was their main foreign policy issue, taking
preference over Brexit, social services, welfare, the healthcare system, and
local government funding. In effect, Labour members, including many trade union
members, voted for Palestine ahead of issues that affect them personally and
collectively.
Corbyn is on record saying, "The UK has a very close relationship with Israel and it is time that relationship is brought to an end."
Corbyn is on record saying, "The UK has a very close relationship with Israel and it is time that relationship is brought to an end."
Can this happen
within the Democratic Party? This is precisely what Tlaib and Omar are saying in their opening days in Congress. That the United States has a special relationship with Israel and that they intend to bring that relationship to an end.
The process has
begun. Rashida Tlaib did not wrap herself in the Stars and Stripes when she was
elected to Congress. Instead, she draped herself in a Palestinian flag.
Newly arrived Ilhan
Omar immediately hit out at Israel, its Prime Minister, Jews and their money.
She was guest speaker at a fund-raising event for an organization that
had supported her campaign and Hamas.
CAIR is an organization professing to represent the civil and social needs of American Muslims. That would be fine if that was their agenda, but CAIR is the American Muslim Brotherhood with a proven identity of supporting Hamas, a designated Palestinian terror organization. And CAIR is now strutting the halls of Congress with confidence pushing aside anyone attempting to ask pertinent questions of their congressional representatives.
CAIR is an organization professing to represent the civil and social needs of American Muslims. That would be fine if that was their agenda, but CAIR is the American Muslim Brotherhood with a proven identity of supporting Hamas, a designated Palestinian terror organization. And CAIR is now strutting the halls of Congress with confidence pushing aside anyone attempting to ask pertinent questions of their congressional representatives.
Asra Nomani, a true
Muslim reformer who wanted to address Ilhan Omar on her anti-Semitic remarks,
was confronted by CAIR bullies who prevented her from speaking to Omar.
In Britain, Jeremy
Corbyn receives support from similar organizations to CAIR. He addressed the
Islamic Human Rights Council in London. Like CAIR, they pose as caring for the
British Muslim community, but they have a stealth agenda to promote dawa and
sharia into Britain. Ahead of Corbyn, a radical imam, Sheikh Bramanpour, spoke openly
about wiping Israel off the map. Corbyn followed him onto the stage and,
instead of condemning the imam’s words, told IHRC that they “represent all
that is best in Islam.”
It remains to be seen
if CAIR, Omar and Tlaib represent all that is best of Islam in America. Up to
now we have seen the hateful, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel side of all three.
I can personally
vouch for the veracity of Asra Nomani as a genuine peacemaker and reformer
having had the honor of sharing a stage with her at a Conference in Jerusalem a
few years back.
If Asra Nomani were
in Congress, instead of Ilhan Omar, we would have more confidence in the future
of the Democratic Party and America.
Barry Shaw is the
International Public Diplomacy Associate at the Israel Institute of Strategic
Studies. He is a researcher into contemporary anti-Semitism and the author of ‘Fighting
Hamas, BDS, and Anti-Semitism’ which examines the anti-Semitism at all
levels of the Palestinian cause.