{"id":36563,"date":"2016-02-27T18:05:46","date_gmt":"2016-02-27T16:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=36563"},"modified":"2016-02-24T15:13:29","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T13:13:29","slug":"24-05-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=36563","title":{"rendered":"The anti-Semitism row in Oxford is not an aberratio"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Is the Labour Party’s problem with racism beyond repair?<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Dan Hodges<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The anti-Semitism row in Oxford is not an aberration \u2013 it is just what the modern Labour Party looks like<\/span><\/strong>
\n\"Jeremy
\nJeremy Corbyn smiles as he leaves the stage after he is announced as the new leader of The Labour Party during the Labour Party Leadership Conference<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier this week Alex Chalmers, the chair of Oxford Labour students, resigned. He was honest and succinct about the reason why. \u201cA large proportion of both OULC and the student left in Oxford more generally have some kind of problem with Jews\u201d, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last night, a statement from the Oxford University Jewish Society began to circulate on social media, claiming to give an insight into how this problem with Jews was actually manifesting itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the statement, senior members of the Labour club liked to regale listeners with a song called \u201cRockets over Tel Aviv\u201d and endorse Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians. They were in the habit of casually referring to Jewish students as \u201cZio\u201d. They repeated tropes about the \u201cZionist lobby\u201d and \u201chigh net worth Jewish individuals\u201d. They stated all Jews should be required to denounce Zionism and the state of Israel, and that those who refused to do so should be shunned. And they had arranged for a group of students to harass a Jewish student and shout \u201cfilthy Zionist\u201d at her.<\/span><\/p>\n

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For obvious reasons, relations between the Oxford University Jewish Society and Oxford University Labour Club are at something of a low ebb. And it will take time to verify the validity of each of these claims. But they align with Alex Chalmers’ own statement that members of the Labour club executive \u201cused offensive terms with casual abandon\u201d, and, \u201chad a history of targeting and harassing Jewish students\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now there are calls for the University authorities and the Labour party to intervene. Such intervention is inadequate. The police need to be called in and if it is true students have been harassed in the way described, people need be arrested and they need to be prosecuted. Then the senior administrators of Oxford University, who have now clearly lost control of their establishment, need to be sacked. At which point attention needs to turn to the Labour Party.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A
\nA Labour rosette Photo: PA<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

It would be nice to be able to write that these reports are shocking. That they are an aberration. That they are anathema to a political party that has a long and proud tradition of combating prejudice.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I can\u2019t write that because these reports are not shocking. They should be, but they are wholly predictable. Nor are they an aberration. They are reflective of a perpetuation \u2013 and tolerance of \u2013 anti-Semitism that starts at the top of the Labour Party, then steadily works its way down. And are they no longer anathema to Labour or its heritage. Far from it. Anti-Semitism is now firmly embedded in the Labour party\u2019s DNA.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago I wrote a piece talking about the hypocrisy of the reaction to the historic racism of Oliver Letwin. About how when it came to bigotry, the Labour Party and the wider Left consistently fail to practice what they preach. But as the events at Oxford University Labour club \u2013 the largest and most prestigious university Labour club in the country \u2013 reveal, it\u2019s no longer just a question of Labour not practising what it preaches. Labour is now openly prasticing what it preaches against.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for Labour MPs, Labour activists and Labour members face up to a few hard truths. One of which is this. Labour does not have an anti-Semitism problem, Labour has a racism problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been as guilty of this as anyone. My articles are littered with references to \u201cracism and anti-Semitism\u201d, as if they are not one and the same thing. Racism \u2013 that\u2019s bad. Anti-Semitism \u2013 yeah, it\u2019s bad, but it\u2019s a different sort of bad. Not quite as bad.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is as bad. Gathering a gang to go up to a Jewish student and call her a filthy Zionist is the same \u2013 exactly the same \u2013 as gathering a gang and going up to black student and calling them a filthy n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another thing the Labour Party needs to understand is that Labour\u2019s racism is now hiding behind a cloak of \u201canti-Zionism\u201d. The statement \u201cI\u2019m not a racist, I\u2019m an anti-Zionist\u201d has become the Left\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m not a racist but\u2026\u201d, or the Left\u2019s equivalent of \u201cI can\u2019t be called a racist for saying I hate Muslims. Islam is a religion, not a race\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure that there are people who have spent a lifetime campaigning against what they would call \u201cZionism\u201d who are not racist. In the same why I\u2019m sure there are people who have spent a lifetime campaigning against immigration who are not racist. That\u2019s not the point. They are now being used as human shields by a lot of people who are racist. And that shield has to be stripped away.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"The Oxford University Labour Club has more in common with Mosley’s Blackshirts than my father’s Labour Party.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Read more:<\/span> Is the Labour Party’s problem with racism beyond repair?<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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twoje uwagi, linki, wlasne artykuly, lub wiadomosci przeslij do: webmaster@reunion68.com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Is the Labour Party’s problem with racism beyond repair? Dan Hodges The anti-Semitism row in Oxford is not an aberration \u2013 it is just what the modern Labour Party looks like Jeremy Corbyn smiles as he leaves the stage after he is announced as the new leader of The Labour Party during the Labour Party […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36563"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36563"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36582,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36563\/revisions\/36582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}