Victor Grossman
THE UK AND THE USA: SOME NASTY PARALLELS?
Commentary by Victor Grossman, Berlin
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Victor Grossman
Britain and the USA have had close ties, echoes and parallels from our start, some very good, others nasty. One of the latter may now be threatening.
Jeremy Corbyn’s rise in Labour Party leadership offered great hopes for a leftward turn in Britain, away from the worrisome policies of Boris Johnson. But hopes were dashed in the recent elections by the dirtiest media campaign in many years plus sniping by New Labour phonies like war-loving Tony Blair, who seemed to prefer the Tories to Jeremy. But also in part to denunciations by the Netanyahu wing in Jewish circles, led by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis who, in a key letter to the London “Times” violated non-partisan traditions by attacking “Labour antisemitism”, saying Corbyn was “not fit for high office”, that “new poison” in the party has been “sanctioned from the top”. The “very soul of our nation is at stake”, he wrote, and called on British Jews to vote for any party except Labour!
Jeremy Corbyn, Quelle YouTube screenshot
Such right-wing advice and the whole campaign by organizations falsely claiming to represent all British Jews, were built on lies. There is undoubtedly less anti-Semitism by far in the Labour Party than among the Tories. As for Corbyn, who has opposed every form of racism all his life, John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons until recently, who is Jewish and a Tory, said that in 22 years of knowing Corbyn he had “never detected so much as a whiff of antisemitism”. Of course, the reason for the vicious, often personal attacks was really because Corbyn does not support Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, but opposes all oppression of “underdogs” anywhere in the world. And Mervis, closely linked to the Israeli government for years, even acted as its unofficial ambassador while Chief Rabbi in Ireland.
