Jackie Walker: a suspense mystery
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Inquiry chair Shami Chakrabarti arrive to deliver anti-Semitism inquiry findings, June 2016.Jonathan Brady/Press Association. All rights reserved.As I write Jackie Walker’s fate is once again uncertain, so the question matters.
Like all
great mysteries, the defenestration of Jackie Walker from the Vice-Chair-ship
of Momentum, and her
renewed suspension from the Labour Party, has quite a back story. Where
to begin? In 1954 when she was born? On May 14, 1948, Israel’s
birth date? On 12 September 2016, when Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the
Labour Party? In 1920 when the organisation Poale Zion affiliated to the UK
Labour Party, or in 2004 when it was re-launched as the Jewish
Labour Movement? Or (as with most public accounts of the
events causing Jackie Walker’s latest ‘offence’) at 11.30am on Monday September 26,
ending one hour later when the training session on antisemitism at the Labour
Party Annual Conference in Liverpool limped to a halt.
I think that we can do
better than that.
Defining
holocaust and antisemitism
I will start
with that infamous training session and work back. It is by now well known that
Ms Walker a) belittled Holocaust Memorial Day; b) said that the fuss about the
danger of attacks on Jewish schools was being over-blown; and c) saw no need
for definitions of antisemitism. Some facts will intrude on the elegant
simplicity of this story.
On Holocaust
Memorial Day she got her facts wrong, saying that it only commemorated the Nazi
Holocaust, and ignored other genocides including that perpetrated on Africans
by the slave trade. In fact International Holocaust Memorial Day does in
principle mark all genocides from the Nazi holocaust onwards. In practice, however, the commemorations virtually ignore the slaughter of probably upwards of half a million Romani, 250,000 mentally and physically disabled and many others under Hitler’s regime, and for example, only pays lip-service to Rwanda. It is the Jewish
narrative that dominates.
But consider
that arbitrary cut-off date. It handily excludes those undoubted but
historically inconvenient earlier genocides. Evidently the United States might have felt sensitive about
an annual focus on the deaths of so many millions of Native Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (even though historians dispute whether this was
deliberate – or just stuff that happened). Britain had its significant role in the
slave trade and the treatment of aborigines in Australia to keep out of the
picture. And so on. The absence from Holocaust Memorial Day of the millions of
slaves who died on the Atlantic crossing and then through the brutal
conditions of slave labour is no accident, no act of God. And it is no
sacrilege for Jackie Walker to point up this glaring omission.
It has been
taken as read by most mainstream commentators that when Jackie Walker said
(while asking a question of the training session tutor, Mike Katz, of the
Jewish Labour Movement) that “I still haven’t heard a definition of
antisemitism that I can work with”, what she meant was that it wasn’t worth
defining because it wasn’t that important. What actually happened before her
intervention sheds a quite
different light.
I was present at the training
session, and have also had the advantage of consulting a transcript of the
proceedings. This shows that a few minutes before Jackie Walker’s intervention
a (Jewish) attendee at the session asked Katz "We don't know what
you're working from. Do you think you can give us what your definition of AS
is?". Katz replied "The standard definition of antisemitism is
actually the European Union Monitoring Centre…." at which point several
other members objected that the EUMC definition had no status, was deeply
flawed etc. This context clearly shows what definition Jackie Walker was
objecting to.
How not to define antisemitism
The ‘EUMC working definition’ is a cause celebre. It is called a ‘working definition’ because it was
never formally adopted by EUMC (which itself no longer exists). When it existed
it was the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia. In 2004 it
commissioned a definition from a working group, which was effectively taken
over by the European Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee,
both bodies with a strong Zionist orientation.
It was in
fact the American Jewish Committee's specialist on antisemitism and extremism,
attorney Kenneth Stern, who was the main author of the EUMC definition. Stern is deeply concerned about
what he calls "politically-based antisemitism, otherwise known in recent
years as anti-Zionism, which treats Israel as the classic Jew. Whereas the Jew
is disqualified by antisemitism from equal membership in the social compact,
antisemites seek to disqualify Israel from equal membership in the community of
nations." In other words, according
to Stern, if you are opposed to the Zionist political project, or indeed advocate
a boycott of Israel, then you are an antisemite. So, despite its name, the EUMC
definition did not originate in the EU at all but from a pro-Israel lobby group
in the USA. With this understanding, the
American spellings in the document become understandable.
But why take
so much trouble over a definition of something so straight-forward as
antisemitism? Brian Klug, an Oxford academic who specialises in the study of
antisemitism manages it in 21 words: “Antisemitism is a form of
hostility to Jews as Jews, where Jews are perceived as something other than
what they are”. The EUMC working definition by contrast took 500 words, a whole
page. That is because it lists a whole raft of types of statement that can be
considered prima facie evidence of
antisemitism, most of them about Israel. The purpose, which should have been
transparent, was not to define antisemitism as commonly understood, but to
extend its reach so as to embrace and proscribe a range of common criticisms of
Israel, often called ‘the new antisemitism’, or even ‘antisemitic anti-zionism’.
The
institutional history of this definition is chequered. It is called a ‘working
definition’ because the EUMC itself never adopted it. When the EU closed down
the EUMC in 2007 its functions were transferred to the Fundamental Rights Agency, which declined to endorse the
definition and indeed removed it from its website. The FRA is on record as stating that it is "not
aware of any public authority in the EU that applies
it", and that it has "no plans for any further development" of
it.
In
2006 the EUMC definition
was taken up and promoted in a report by the All Party Parliamentary Group
on Antisemitism under its chair (then MP) Denis
MacShane. But in 2015 under its new chair, John Mann MP, the group brought out a
further report which did not repeat this call.
Instead it commissioned a sub-report from Professor David Feldman (later Deputy
Chair of the Chakrabarti inquiry) which came down in favour of – the Brian Klug
definition. In 2011 my own union, UCU, after one failed attempt to use the EUMC
definition internally, resolved at its annual conference to exclude it from any
future role in disciplinary cases. In 2013 the BBC Trust agreed that the definition had no standing.
This was the
‘definition’ that Mike Katz and the Jewish Labour Movement refer to as the
‘standard’ definition – and which Jackie Walker said she could not work with.
The
Jewish Labour Movement
The Jewish
Labour Movement, mostly under its former name of Poale Zion, has been an affiliated organisation of the Labour Party
since 1920. Its origins were as a movement of Jewish/Marxist/Zionist workers
across Europe in the early days of the twentieth century. With Jewish
immigration to Israel it became a major force there, and through a dizzying
series of splits and remergers became the origin both of Mapai (Israel’s
governing party for decades) and of its left rival Mapam.
In 1920
Poale Zion in the UK could be seen as an authentic representative of the then
numerous Jewish working class. In the 1930’s its supporters included Labour NEC member (later
party chair) Harold Laski. Postwar it retained influence – this was a period when
almost all progressive people in the UK were moved by the trauma of the
holocaust, excited by the socialist experiment of the kibbutz movement, and
admiring of ‘plucky little Israel’ trouncing its many Arab neighbours. Prominent
parliamentary backers included left icons like Ian Mikardo and Sidney
Silverman. In 1946 Poale Zion had 2000 members.
How things
have changed. Nearly 50 years of illegal occupation and settlement, population
punishment by blockade, and the repeated deployment of a formidable state
killing machine against civilians with nowhere to hide long ago ended the
love-in. Large swathes of the left, and indeed of the centre ground of British
politics, believe that the automatic support for Israel by the governments of
the UK and other developed countries is both morally indefensible and in the
longer term pragmatically disastrous.
How did all
this affect Poale Zion? In effect it shrank, and despite a 2004 attempted
rebrand as ‘Jewish Labour Movement’ became inactive and nearly invisible. It
remained, as it still is, affiliated not only to our Labour Party but also to
the Israeli Labour Party and the World Zionist Organisation. However as late as
2015 its website remained totally inactive, though it seems to have maintained
an email list. In February 2016 its chair Louise Ellman MP (who during this
year’s Labour Party conference in Liverpool asked for her own constituency
Party in that city to be suspended on grounds of entryism) stepped
down, to be replaced by Jeremy Newmark. It is from that point on that a new, brash
and aggressive Jewish Labour Movement leapt into view. There is no publicly available information on
where its evidently ample funding comes from.
Newmark is
active in his local Labour Party, but was until the other day far more known
for his former role from 2006
until 2013 as Chief Executive of the umbrella group the Jewish Leadership
Council (JLC). Before that he was communications director for the then Chief
Rabbi Lord Sachs.
It was while in charge of the JLC that
he gave evidence at a 2013 Employment Tribunal case alleging anti-Semitic
behaviour by the University and College Union (my own union, by the way), brought
by one of its members. In dismissing the case in its entirety (“We greatly
regret that the case was ever brought. At heart, it represents an impermissible
attempt to achieve a political end by litigious means.”) the judgement
remarked that “we have rejected as untrue” the evidence of Mr Newmark
concerning an incident at the 2008 UCU Congress. And that’s not all – one “preposterous
claim” by Newmark was described as a “painfully ill-judged example of playing
to the gallery”. And yet
more – Newmark’s statement (in the context of the academic boycott controversy
in 2007) that the union was “no longer a fit arena for free speech”, was a
comment “which we found not only extraordinarily arrogant but also disturbing.”
Clearly
Newmark is a man with a mission. It seems to be the identification and rooting
out of antisemitism. And his arrival on the national Labour Party scene has
coincided with the uproar about left antisemitism.
The surge
in antisemitism
What surge
in antisemitism? We do know that antisemitic incidents reported in the UK in
the first 6 months of this year, as recorded by the Community Security Trust,
rose by 15% above those for the previous year. But percentage changes like these tell only
part of the story. The actual number of such incidents recorded for the
first half of 2016 was 557.
And that figure is still below that for 2014, which were boosted by the Israeli
assault on Gaza, so no surge.
By
comparison, the official figures for hate crimes of all types in the
UK has averaged over 220,000 annually over the most recent 5-year period.
Antisemitism is a foul attitude which has had dire effects over the centuries.
Vigilance is needed. But right now in the UK it manifests itself as a pimple on
the bum of the far too many other
offences committed out of hatred or fear of the Other.
Is it possible that despite the low levels of
antisemitic behaviour in the general population there is significant
antisemitism within the left and specifically the Labour Party? Attempts have
been made to show that such views are either historically endemic on the left,
or brought on by the Corbyn ascendency. (That these explanations are mutually
contradictory is glossed over.) Those who really want to see this argument in extenso could consider reading David
Rich’s recent
book, timed for publication just ahead of the Labour Party
conference. But there is contrary evidence.
In response
to a moral panic about Left antisemitism seemingly expanding without limit, the
group Free Speech on Israel coalesced in April out of a
loosely-knit band of Jewish Labour Party supporters. Some 15 of us got together
at a couple of days’ notice for the inaugural gathering. We found that over our
lifetimes we could muster only a handful of antisemitic experiences between us. And, crucially, although in aggregate we had hundreds of years of Labour Party membership, no single one of us had ever experienced an incident of antisemitism in the Party.
Some time in
May the ex-Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks was interviewed on Radio 4 about the
antisemitism ‘crisis’ by now gripping the nation. Helpfully his interviewer
invited him to share some of his own personal experiences of antisemitism. His
response, from memory ran rather like this: “Well….actually I have never
experienced antisemitism myself. Which is odd, because most people know that
the Chief Rabbi is Jewish”.
The ex-Chief
Rabbi and Free Speech on Israel are at one on this, if on little else.
The
conundrum of evidence-free assertions
How then do we make sense of a ‘crisis’ for which
evidence is so lacking? Well, one solution if you want a crisis and lack enough
evidence is to invent some. Another is to redefine innocent behaviour as
evidence of criminal intent.
The ‘crisis’ seems to have taken off big-time in
February this year with the allegations (now known to be fabricated) of rampant
antisemitism in the Oxford University Labour Club, leading to the establishment
of an enquiry under Baroness Royall. Yet this ‘fact’ was factitious. The two
students who made the claims have (respectively) resigned
from the Labour Party and been kicked out of it! Both seem to have been
supporters of another party. One of them formerly worked at BICOM, the well-funded
PR operation that promotes Israel’s image.
As long ago as April a report
in openDemocracy on accusations of antisemitism which led to early suspensions
showed that nearly all of them related to remarks that people made, not about
Jews, but about Israel and Zionism. Historical Facebook postings and Twitter feeds
had been ransacked (by whom?) to find a careless nuance. A Labour member using
the word ‘Zionist’ as a purely descriptive adjective in a tweet can be treated
as a suspected antisemite for it. (I refer to the case of the Vice-Chair of my
own constituency Labour Party, still suspended as I write.)
Curiously the mainstream media continue with
their established narrative. Do their journalists investigate? Can they read?
Since the answer to at least one of these
questions must be ‘yes’ we do need to look for another explanation of why, and
indeed how, a crisis of antisemitism in the Labour Party which doesn’t actually
exist has become a ‘fact’.
Making believe
If I were to say that there was a conspiracy to
make this happen I would no doubt be accused of antisemitism (Jewishness is no
defence) for an antisemitic trope and condemned to one of the circles of hell
(the 6th probably), or at least suspension. So I won't. But anyhow
conspiracy was almost certainly unnecessary. There is a community of interest plus overlapping membership.
It is impossible to know from the outside exactly
what and who have made this moral panic go with such a swing. Key individuals
may well be Jeremy Newmark, well-placed in JLM, though only just in time, to
fan these flames. The wily Mark Regev took up his post as Israeli ambassador in
London at the start of April. In July Ella Rose left her job as public affairs officer at the Israeli Embassy to
become Director of JLM. Who knows? Organisationally, judging by their public pronouncements
there is an at least informal coalition of forces involving JLM, Progress (the
Blairite pressure group), and Labour Friends of Israel which have all been
promoting the idea that the left is permeated with antisemitism.
What has made this alignment of forces a natural
is that they have all wanted the same thing – the ejection of Jeremy Corbyn
from the Labour leadership. The Blairites (but let's not forget the Brownites)
understood that his consolidation in post threatened their whole vision of the
Labour Party and its place in an orderly capitalist society with a human face.
The Israelis had every reason to wish for a short tenure for the first major
party leader in a developed country to have a record of supporting Palestinian
rights. All the significant Jewish community organisations, now including JLM,
sing from the same psalm book – the refrain is that an attachment to Israel is
an integral part of Jewish identity in the twenty-first century.
So – if attacks on Israel’s Zionist project of
securing the maximum territory with the minimum number of Palestinians can be
construed as antisemitic, and this can somehow be blamed on Corbyn, everyone
gains.
Making unbelieve
The whole operation has been breath-takingly successful
for the last 8 months. And it is not over. JLM, for example, is pressing for a
change in the Labour Party’s constitution that would make it (even) easier to
exclude people on suspicion of harbouring antisemitic tendencies. It has
influence at the highest levels in the Labour Party. The very training session
run by JLM that led to Jackie Walker’s second suspension was set up by the
Labour Party bureaucracy in direct contradiction of the Chakrabarti inquiry. Their
report recommended against such targeted training, and in favour of broader
anti-racist education. But, hey, who’s counting? Not the Labour Party
apparatus.
Free Speech on Israel aims to expose this soufflé
of a Ponzi scheme. It rests on the shifting sands of unreliable evidence, and
on assertions that contradict our (Jewish and non-Jewish) everyday experience.
Not least, the claims about a Jewish community united in its alignment behind
Israel is yet more make believe. The best survey
evidence we have is that 31% of UK Jews describe themselves as ‘No, not
Zionist’; and many of the remainder are deeply concerned over Israel’s
policies.
We should suspend our belief.
Acknowledgement:
I have been helped in writing this article by research carried out by The
Electronic Intifada’s Asa Winstanley, and by his advice.