Here are a few jottings on today’s proceedings.
The first witness to be called by Keith Vaz was Jonathan Arkush of the British Board of Deputies
In response to a question about the prevalence of antisemitism today, Arkush discussed the implications of the available data, including spikes caused by events in the Middle East, and the role of the far right, the far left and elements from Muslim communities.
Vaz then turned to the EUMC working definition and asked whether it was correct to include criticism of the foundation of the state of Israel as antisemitic.
Arkush responded that it would be important to know whether someone opposed all forms of nationalism or just Jewish nationalism., and affirmed that of course one could criticise Netanyahu’s government without being antisemitic.
The conversation then turned to Ken Livingstone, and Arkush asserted that his recent remarks were ‘plainly antisemitic’ and ‘utterly repellent to our community.’ (14:12)
He also confirmed that he believed the main problem lay with the Labour Party rather than other mainstream parties and that in his opinion statements made by Malia Bouattia (President of the NUS) were also antisemitic (14:15).
MP Ranil Jayawardena raised concerns about the obsessive scrutiny of Israel, and the readiness of some to cosy up to antisemites. Arkush then made the important point that Corbyn’s meetings with groups such as Hamas were not arranged simply with a view to making peace, and that Corbyn has failed to acknowledge a problem with such alliances.
When asked why he thought Labour had such a problem right now, Arkush again invoked Corbyn’s assocations with StW, the PSC and a more general extreme hostility to Israel (14:40). All these might, he suggested, embolden bigots. He went on to acknowledge that some of this had been present before Corbyn’s election, but only in the far left of the party, not then dominant.
Arkush’s concerns about Corbyn were very apparent, and he also mentioned the Labour leader’s references to Jonathan Freedland in the recent Vice documentary (14:47).
Chuka Umunna reminded us that 49% of the polled members didn’t believe the LP had a problem with antisemitism, insisting that such criticisms were politically motivated. Clearly this pattern of responses concerned him.
Angus Robertson (SNP) defended MSPs who feel passionately about Israel/Palestine and wish to discuss the topic. Keith Vaz then asked him if he thought Ken Livingstone ‘fell into a trap’ (15:06)– that he was only talking about Gaza but then got accused of antisemitism. But Robertson unequivocally condemned Ken Livingstone’s way of tackling this issue.
Ken Livingstone’s own submission to this enquiry have been widely covered elsewhere – I’m not sure it told us anything we didn’t already know,
