Hate on the leftLabor and anti-Semitism: these are the roots of the problem on the left
The current crisis in the Labor party has exposed some profound fault lines on the left, with considerable evidence of mounting anti-Semitism inside the party. The far right was the most radical in its enthusiasm to solve the “Jewish Question” through the Holocaust, but the notion that there is such a question has been shared by some on the left, too. There has always been, on the left, a view of the world which projects all the problems of society (at the national or international level) onto Jews. It’s a view which not only fails to grasp the threat posed by anti-Semitism but condones and colludes with it. It’s a view that others (sadly) on the left need to challenge.
The current crisis in the Labor party has exposed some profound fault lines on the left. Despite considerable evidence of mounting anti-Semitism inside the party, which finally provoked a major protest, some have responded with unabashed hostility.
Rather than taking the side of the overwhelming majority of Jews, and taking their obvious hurt and dismay seriously, some have charged them with dishonesty. They say they are exaggerating or inventing anti-Semitism where it does not or scarcely exists. They accuse them of manipulation and of conspiring against the leader of the party when he has every opportunity of rescuing the country from the disasters visited upon it by the Conservative government.
Beyond this, some have sought to explain away anti-Semitism as a consequence of the supposedly bad behavior of Jews, in the form of the conduct and even the existence of the state of Israel, and the supposedly uncritical support given to it by Jews in Britain.
Leaving aside the obvious fact that many Jews in the UK are by no means uncritical of many of the policies of the Israeli government, the central problem with these responses is that they partake of some classic anti-Semitic tropes.
The idea that Jews are not to be trusted when they say they have been attacked, the charge that they engage in special pleading and that they plot and scheme together for malign purposes, have long formed staples of anti-Semitic discourse. Historically, they have been central to the idea that there is a “Jewish Question” which somehow must solved – either by Jews behaving better (ideally by ceasing to be Jews) or (if they will not do so) by getting rid of them.
The “Jewish Question”
The far right was the most radical in its enthusiasm to solve the “Jewish Question” through the Holocaust but the notion that there is such a question has been shared by some on the left, too. It was first formulated in the modern world in the Enlightenment.
