Cynically Exploiting Antisemitism

Another day, another cynical display. Tuesday night's visit to the LSE's debating society by Tzipi Hotovely, Israel's ambassador to the UK, drew the sorts of crowds she'd probably rather not have. A modest groups of student protestors descended to express their solidarity with Palestinians, and challenge the grotesqueries of Hotovely herself, a woman whose extremism finds no parallel in British politics except on the furthest reaches of the far right.

According to Anshel Pfeffer, writing in Haaretz on the occasion of her appointment, she was groomed for high office by Benjamin Nethanyahu precisely because she's a far right fanatic. He says, "Hotovely is an unabashed Islamophobe and religious fundamentalist who denies the existence of the Palestinian people and supports annexation of the entire West Bank and Jewish control of the Temple Mount." She even criticised the British Board of Deputies for "working against the Israeli interest" because it backs a neutered form of Palestinian statehood. Anshel concluded that her ambassadorial appointment should be welcomed because she will show British Jews the rot eating up the Israeli state.

Unsurprisingly, and not for the first time, choosing between an oppressed people and a shameless oppressor, Priti Patel threw her lot in with the powerful. She's backing a police investigation of the protest, saying antisemitism has no place in Britain. The Israeli embassy itself condemned the non-existent violence that supposedly greeted Hotovely as she left the building. Which is exactly what you'd expect the Tories and Israel's official channels to do. For their own reasons, both are happy to inflate the sense of peril British Jewish communities feel. For the Tories, it's electoral reasons. Having won disproportionate support among Jewish voters since at least 2015 they'd quite like that to continue, and by presenting as the community's best defenders is they way they're going to do it. Even if it means amplifying threats and dubbing events antisemitic when they clearly are not. And Israel, particularly the wing of the Likud establishment Hotovely embodies, want more of the diaspora to "come home" to power its expansionism further.

The usual cynical rubbish, in other words. And then the Labour leadership got involved. Lyin' Lisa Nandy condemned "the appalling treatment of the Israeli ambassador", adding "any attempt to silence or intimidate those we disagree with should never be tolerated." A reminder, if it was needed, that Nandy is to honesty what Geoffrey Cox is to probity. Apologists for murder, Labour Friends of Israel tweeted a string of drivel from the shadow cabinet. Keir Starmer wibbled that intimidation is not acceptable. The usually invisible Nick Thomas-Symonds wrote that "antisemitism has no place in our society", while the LFI's vice chair, Diana Johnson, tweeted "I hope arrests are made." For what? Booing too loudly?

It's all so synthetic and see-through, but they've allowed Labour's official positioning on matters Israel/Palestine be hijacked entirely by the same extremism that fuels Hotovely's far right politics, a position now determined by the foaming bullshit of Jewish Chronicle editorials. It's a story of cowardice and factional convenience. We know the story about Jeremy Corbyn's suspension from the Parliamentary Labour Party, and how Starmer reneged on the deal done to readmit him after Margaret Hodge and her mates threw their toys out of the proverbial. Rather than challenge her small and unrepresentative clique, and how she might torpedo his efforts at undoing the damage the inflated and exaggerated antisemitism crisis did the Labour Party, Starmer caved in. But, happily for his leadership, having Hodge, the JLM, and self-appointed gentile guardians of what can and can't be said about the occupation of Palestine onside meant the party would no longer be vulnerable to dishonest Tory and press attacks. Yet this meant only one position was tenable - an ever-increasing philosemitism. As friendly visits to synagogues are unlikely to make headlines in the Jewish or the national press, ostentatiously eliding penance with apologism for and the white washing of Israel could be the only outcome. Their condemnations of antisemitism are neither genuine nor heartfelt, they're a ritual, a must-do to try and secure the Labour right's grip on a diminishing and increasingly cash-strapped party.

Starmer will be happy with today's posturing. No press attacks, not even the smidgen of a suggestion that he's soft on the critics of Israel. His comfort zone is the space of non-punishment the Tory papers reserve for the establishment's most loyal lackeys, and the shadcab's lying about the LSE protest is good for a few more warm baths yet. And, bonus, the right people on the left are upset, with a few thousand more tearing up their membership cards up in disgust. So what if Israel is emboldened to imprison, shoot, bomb more Palestinians because politicians from both UK parties flatter its brutality and ethnic cleansing efforts? It's not their business, and they've made it clear they're happy for it not to be.

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