Brighton Council Leader Daniel Yates compared the IHRA to the Theft Act – He has a point! - Unlike the Greens Who Had No Point!
Brighton and Hove Council voted today to adopt the full IHRA Definition of ‘Anti-Semitism’ by 46 votes with 1 abstention.
Outside Hove Town Hall anti-racist organisations, trade unionists and Palestine Solidarity Campaign supporters demonstrated. Present were banners from UNISON, and Brighton and Hove Trades Council.
Contrary to what we had expected there was no Zionist counter-demonstration. There was Simon Cobbs, who kept to himself, of Sussex Friends of Israel filming the demonstration and racist Lukey Stanger. There was also a Zionist delegation, led by Fiona Sharpe of the far-Right Sussex Friends of Israel which was accompanied into Hove Town Hall by Daniel Yates, leader of the Labour Group and the Council. Grinning like a cat Yates avoided discussing with Black and Muslim demonstrators why he was supporting a racist definition of ‘anti-Semitism’.
The meeting started at 4.30 and I was down to ask a Question. My question was simplicity itself, which was just as well because I was facing 47 Brighton and Hove councillors, not the sharpest tools in the box. Why, I asked, does the Council need to adopt a definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ that is over 500 words when there is a simple one, in the Oxford English Dictionary viz. ‘Hostility to or prejudice against Jews’.
Unsurprisingly Yates was unable to answer because that might have involved telling the truth, i.e. ‘we are adopting the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism because that is the best way to defend the world’s only apartheid state, Israel.’
Instead and quite amazingly Yates, who to be fair is not the most cerebral of people to have led the Labour Group, instead treated us to the fact that Theft is not all it seems and that there are many and varied definitions of theft, things like deception, fraud and extortion. All of which is true but all of which is irrelevant. Theft is a criminal act (except when the rich commit it). Anti-Semitism is a political act or crime whose definition is as simple as ABC.
When I responded, as I’m allowed to with a further question, I immediately made the point that the IHRA begins by stating it is a ‘non-legal definition’ so the comparison with the legalities of the Theft Act were absurd and irrelevant.
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| Trades Council and Brighton & Hove Momentum banners |
The main point that I tried to get across was that this was not about anti-Semitism but about Israel. The IHRA was there to defend Israel not Jewish people. It did this by conflating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
I then explained, to the evident irritation of some Tory and Labour councillors, that I had lived in Brighton for over 40 years and I had never experienced anti-Semitism. Neither have most Jews. It is all but non-existent.
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| Daniel Yates - Leader of the Labour Group - not the brightest tool in the box |
I also explained, but I’m not sure that Yates and his New Labour friends understood, that far from defending Jewish people the IHRA actually left them more exposed because it defines anti-Semitism in terms of hatred not hostility. I gave the example of someone who says they don’t want their daughter to marry a Jew even though they have nothing personally against Jews. That is hostility not hatred and is therefore not covered by the IHRA.
I also quoted what Nkosi Zwelivelile, the grandchild of Nelson Mandela wrotein The Guardian a week ago. It should be imprinted upon the brain of every Labour Councillor.
Like Madiba and Desmond Tutu before me, I see the eerie similarities between Israel’s racial laws and policies towards Palestinians, and the architecture of apartheid in South Africa. We South Africans know apartheid when we see it. In fact, many recognise that, in some respects, Israel’s regime of oppression is even worse.
The IHRA contains 11 examples, 7 of which refer to Israel. I quoted the preamble to the 11 illustrations which says that ‘criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.’ and made the point that Israel was not like any other country. No normal western liberal democracy demolishes villages of one section of the populace in order to place another ethnic group in its place as Israel does to Palestinian villages such as Um al-Hiran and Khan al Ahmar.
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| Hove Town Hall - the venue for the Council meeting |
My final flourish was to welcome the opposition of the Tory group to anti-Semitism and contrast it with when they opposed the right to immigrate to Britain for Jewish refugees from Czarist pogroms and anti-Semitism like my father’s family. I pointed out that they had introduced the first Immigration Act the Aliens Act in 1905 to keep Jews out of Britain. I also noted that when Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany tried to enter this country the Tories opposed them as ‘bogus’ asylum seekers, just as they oppose asylum seekers today.
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I also commented on the pathetic spectacle of the Green group and Phelim McCafferty lining up behind the two other major parties. Let no one think that the Greens represent any radical alternative to New Labour, be it in Brighton or nationally. During my speech a Council flunkey turned my mike off, not that it mattered as my voice carries anyway! However I simply turned it back on!
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| Racists unite - Lukey Stanger of Red Road and Simon Cobbs of Sussex Friends of Israel, recently accused by fellow Zionists of blackmail |
I was followed by Nadia Edmond, a member of the University College Union and a well known anti-racist who headed a delegation of Black, Muslim and anti-racist groups including Stand Up to Racism. In the 5 minutes allotted to her she explained why the IHRA was an attack on free speech and how it added nothing to the fight against anti-Semitism or racism. She quoted Oxford academic Brian Klug who said that when everything and everyone is anti-Semitic then no one is.
There was a reply by Fiona Sharpe of Sussex Friends of Israel, a far-Right group that pretends that it represents all of Brighton and Hove 3,000 Jews. I hope it doesn’t because she is an out and out racist, who lied and perjured herself to Brighton magistrates court when a Palestinian member of Brighton PSC, Yasser, was charged with public order offences. After video of the events were produced the magistrates chose not to believe her.
Ms Sharpe’s main argument was that the Jewish community was entitled to ‘self define’ anti-Semitism and that it had chosen the IHRA. This is wrong on many levels. Firstly I doubt if 1% of the Jewish community have actually read it. It is Zionist organisations who claim to speak on behalf of that community. Secondly anti-Semitism is not subjective but objective. The idea that any group can define their own oppression to the exclusion of any other interpretation is wrong intellectually and shows you can't actually defend that definition. In the case of anti-Semitism it is wrong on a number of levels. Not all Jews are of the same opinion as to what constitutes anti-Semitism so what the Council was doing and New Labour was doing was adopting the viewpoint of the most racist and reactionary of Jews.
If anti-Semitism exists then it should be possible to define it with clear and explicit language and argument and not rely on a ‘right’ of those affected to define it as they wish. It is a racist argument because it assumes all Jews are of one and the same mind.
But the most powerful reason is that no group has the right to define their own ‘oppression’ if it affects the rights of others. The definition of anti-Semitism in the IHRA directly prevents Palestinians from defining Israel as a racist entity. That alone makes the IHRA illegitimate.
The fact is that Jews in Britain are notoppressed. Anti-Semitism statistics are not reliable and given that the collation of them has been taken over by the Israeli state via organisations like the Community Security Trust no reliance should be placed on their figures, indeed there are very good reasons for not trusting them. [See The Myth of Increased Anti-Semitic Attacks & the Creation of a False Media Narrative]
The racism faced by Black, Asian, Muslim and Roma people is simply not the same, qualitatively or quantitatively as that faced by Jews. Jews are a privileged and prosperous community. They suffer no economic disadvantage. They do not suffer state racism. There are no reports of Jewish deaths in custody or violence by the Police. There are no Jewish victims of Windrush or deportations. Anti-Semitism today is a marginal prejudice, nothing more.
That is why Jews, who are a minority, vote overwhelmingly for parties of the Right. When they or their representatives define anti-Semitism they do it along class lines and they see their enemies as those who are not privileged. That is why the ruling class and establishment in this country uses ‘anti-Semitism’ and Jews in order to effectively bolster and legitimise their own foreign policy support of Israel and the special relationship with Israel.
No one on the Council defended the IHRA in its own terms. The main argument was the pathetic ‘right to define’ of the Jewish community as if their representatives or indeed the community itself was somehow neutral and above politics.
The most pathetic speech came from the Leader of the Greens, Phelim McCafferty, a wannabe member of the local establishment. Phelim, conscious of how he has ratted out on the cause of Palestine went to some lengths to argue that his support of the IHRA did not affect his support for the Palestinians. He accepted that the IHRA has already been used to close down debate. In effect he was saying that he supported the Palestinians and he supported the main weapon, anti-Semitism, used against supporters of the Palestinians. Totally incoherent and totally unprincipled. Phelim and Brighton’s Greens have blown their credibility.
The first task of the next Labour Council after May should be to get rid of the IHRA as a threat to free speech and to get rid of Dan Yates as Leader of the Council.
Full credit should also be given to Penny Gilbey, the North Portslade Labour Councillor, who abstained and thereby ensured that the decision of the Council was not unanimous.
Tony Greenstein
PS: when the Council video of the meeting becomes available I shall post excerpts
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And if Daniel Yates and the leadership of the Council is serious about taking all forms of racism seriously they might now investigate the management of Knoll House in Hove where UNISON has been complaining there has been systematic racist bullying of staff - Black and East European. So far the Council has done nothing, an independent investigation having been blocked by the management's union, the GMB.
PS: when the Council video of the meeting becomes available I shall post excerpts
And if Daniel Yates and the leadership of the Council is serious about taking all forms of racism seriously they might now investigate the management of Knoll House in Hove where UNISON has been complaining there has been systematic racist bullying of staff - Black and East European. So far the Council has done nothing, an independent investigation having been blocked by the management's union, the GMB.