by Hugh Fitzgerald
Members of the Labour Party hit a moral rock bottom the other day. In County Durham, Steve Cooke, the secretary of a local chapter of the Party, presented a resolution condemning the murder of 11 Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue. He couldn’t imagine that anyone would object.
A local chapter of the British Labour Party voted against a resolution condemning last week’s massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, with leaders reportedly saying that there was too much focus on “anti-Semitism this, anti-Semitism that.”
Steve Cooke, the secretary of the Norton West party group in England’s County Durham, wrote on Facebook that he he was “aghast to report that an emergency motion on the Pittsburgh synagogue attack which I took to my Labour Party branch meeting last night was voted down, with the leader of Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council and the cabinet member for community safety among its most vociferous opponents,” the Independent reported.
Cooke said that his proposed motion condemned the murders and anti-Semitism in general, but people told him that the resolution should remove references to anti-Semitism and instead merely condemn all forms of racism. According to Cooke, past motions against Islamophobia and anti-migrant rhetoric were not forced to be watered down in such a manner.
Cooke also wrote that members told him there was too much focus on “anti-Semitism this, anti-Semitism that” and that a local councillor claimed the long-running controversy over anti-Semitism in the Labour Party was “just a game being played.”
In the end, the resolution was voted down after only two people voted to support it.
Only two people voted for the resolution. One was its author, Steve Cooke himself, and one other person. All the others voted against a resolution condemning the murder of 11 Jews by an antisemite.
They thought there was too much focus on “antisemitism.” Just because the people killed happened to be Jews doesn’t mean we shouldn’t condemn “racism” and “islamophobia” at the same time. That would be fairer. Why should we single Jews out for special sympathy? How about just saying “we deplore all forms of racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism” and leave it at that? No need to mention Pittsburgh, because that would be showing favoritism to Jewish victims. And that’s exactly what we are trying to avoid — favoritism.
The Labour Party and its leader, the leftist Jeremy Corbin, have for years been condemned by British Jews for what they see as widespread acceptance of antisemitism within the party ranks and leadership. But Cooke said on Facebook that it was the more left-wing members of the party that supported his motion, while the “Corbyn-skeptic” members opposed it.”
Good God. So the antisemitism in the Labour Party is not limited to Corbyn and his loyalists, but can also be found among the “Corbyn-skeptic” members who opposed the resolution. Apparently there’s so much of it to go around that everyone who wants it can have a share.
Elsewhere in Britain, according to the Independent, a local Labour Party branch in Southend West only voted to condemn the Pittsburgh attack after removing a line in the resolution vowing to “recognize that anti-Semitism exists in society and affirm our belief that all forms of anti-Semitism must be eradicated.”
Got that? The Southend West chapter would condemn the murders in Pittsburgh only if the line vowing to “recognize that antisemitism exists in society” and to “affirm our belief that all forms of antisemitism must be eradicated” were taken out.
Try to see it from their point of view. Here’s what the Labourites in Southend West, and Norton West, must be thinking:
“We’re not going to condemn only antisemitism. That would be showing favoritism to Jews. We’ll denounce “racism” and “islamophobia,” because these are real problems real people face today, but “antisemitism” is different. It’s mostly a thing of the past. We mustn’t single out antisemitism when Jews — let’s face it — have never had it so good. That would just be playing into the hands of the Zionists, who love mentioning antisemitism to justify their own crimes. And we’re certainly not going to do that. If Jews want antisemitism to be “eradicated,” then why don’t they change their behavior, that rubs so many people the wrong way? And for god’s sake, they should stop feeling so sorry for themselves. As usual, they think they’re the only ones suffering. Well, what about the Palestinians? What about their suffering? Eleven people were killed in Pittsburgh, and the world goes crazy. But nearly 200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. Doesn’t anyone care about them?
First published in Jihad Watch.
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One Response
Well, some say Jews are the Chosen People. If so, they are certainly chosen to serve as a mirror in which we can see our own dualities and hypocrisies — courage and cowardice, greed and charity, truth and falseness, coarseness and kindness, …// We all face the mirror but some keep their eyes closed, some in shame, some shamelessly. //