Jews for Black Lives Matter
Knowing what it is like to have its concerns ignored by Labour, the Jewish community is to hold Starmer to account over his comments regarding the Black Lives Matter movement.
Photography by ‘Jeremy Corbyn’ on Flickr
Harold Wilson once remarked that a week is a long time in politics. Certainly, this has been true during this pandemic, when the events of politics have reached light-speed. 2020 has so far felt like an updated version of the Passover story - with plagues, corrupt leaders and murder hornets - but it is in the last two weeks that Wilson’s words have felt especially relevant to the Labour Party.
Labour’s long week began on June 25, with Rebecca Long-Bailey retweeting Maxine Peake’s Independent interview. The article contained a causal correlation of George Floyd’s death, implying that the knee on the neck was taught to American police by Israeli services. Israel does have a role in training U.S. law enforcement - as it does in the UK - but it was not responsible for the police brutality that led to Floyd’s death. The U.S.-Israel exchange network instead focuses on teaching counter-terrorism techniques. The lazy link between American police brutality reflects the anti-Semitic trope that Jews are responsible for all the world’s evils. Even with Starmer’s pledge to “rip the poison out by the roots,” in regard to anti-Semitism, I had little faith that Long-Bailey would face any consequences for her bigoted tweet. I believed Labour was too far gone.
I saw Long-Bailey’s tweet as the latest in the long line of Labour’s anti-Semitic incidents. It’s a long list. They include: the rejection of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, on the grounds that it states that Israel has the right to exist (even though the definition specifies that the actions of Israeli governments can and should be criticised); abuse of Labour MPs, such as Luciana Berger, who later left the party over safety concerns; and suspensions over anti-Semitic comments. Those that voiced complaints of anti-Semitism weren’t being taken seriously enough, such as the whistle-blowers who went on BBC Panorama, were accused of having “personal and political axes to grind” and that their complaints were a way to undermine Corbyn.
Reading the article brought back memories of the election night. How angry I had been, sitting in my university dorm room alone, listening to Jewish friends say that if Corbyn won, they would leave the country. What frightened me was not Corbyn, but my friends; those whom I had told my worries had dismissed me and were now sat in our university bar praying for a Labour victory. Britain no longer felt like the refuge our ancestors found, but a hostile, foreign land with a culture I no longer felt British enough to participate in.
Keir Starmer dismissing Long-Bailey for refusing to take down her tweet hopefully reflects that systemic changes are occurring within Labour. At the very least, it shows Keir Starmer as a leader who is willing to back up their rhetoric to the Jewish Community with action. However, Labour’s far-left factions might still have a problem with anti-Semitism. The sacking, nevertheless, was cathartic, showing the Jewish community that with a new leader, Jewish voices are valued within mainstream Labour again.
Still, as Wilson said, a week is a long time in politics. Days later, Starmer’s flippant comments on the Black Lives Matter movement have created worrying questions about Labour’s stance on policies needed to create the radical racial changes in this country. The outrage over Starmer calling Black Lives Matter “a moment” and calls to defund the police “nonsense” should not be confided to the Black community, but should concern the Jewish community as well. We should also be wary of judging Starmer at this early stage of his leadership, as little has been seen of actual policy. Nevertheless, his remarks raise moral questions for the Jewish community, who are now in the privileged position of having a leader so strong on one form of racism, but unfortunately lacking chutzpah to tackle another.
The Jewish community knows what it is like to have their concerns trivialised. Anti-Semitism is perhaps the only discrimination that is still debated in the national press, instead of being decided by Jews themselves. This pain means the community cannot now look away because there is a leader who takes anti-Semitism seriously. My concern stems from the small number of Conservative Jews who don’t support the Black Lives Matter movement because of the organisation’s anti-Zionist ideology. The principles behind Black Lives Matter are bigger than the political organisation and bigger than Zionism. By not fighting for Black rights within Labour and beyond, the Jewish community risks not only turning its back on another minority community, but people within the Jewish community itself - who are seen as Black before they are seen as Jewish. Those who can, must advocate for change. As a member of the Jewish community myself, I fear that if we do not, we will be no better than those within Labour who ignored and belittled our concerns and made us so scared, some of us considered leaving the country.
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