An Open Letter to Jeremy Corbyn
By: Ameya Hanlon
Tags: Anti Semitism, UK Politics, Labour Party, Politics, Jeremy Corbyn

Image by Emphyrio from Pixabay

Dear Jeremy,

I am a white, secular Brit. I have no background in any religion or religious identity. I consider myself left-wing and grew up in a town famous for its role against the Nazi attacks on the UK. I found your statement in response to the EHRC deeply troubling. Many of your supporters are angrily arguing the weaponisation of antisemitism and the political infighting has started all over again.

You’ll probably never read this, but I want to explain why I feel your statement was unfair and misjudged. I hope that some of what I say can be considered and reflected upon beyond the anger and rancour about your suspension from the Labour Party.

Growing up, I had very little knowledge of being Jewish beyond what I discovered as a secondary school pupil in GCSE History. I saw the hook-nosed Nazi propaganda and read about fascists who fought for Jewish extinction. I read Anne Frank’s diary and just couldn’t understand what would lead people to treat their fellow human beings in such a cold, calculated and callous way. I couldn’t understand the demeaning and menacing treatment of people who were suspected of running the world purely to benefit themselves. I couldn’t even understand why they were suspected of such things.

There was a girl at my school who was rumoured to be Jewish. I say rumoured because people I knew referred to Jews (and still do) as if they are some sort of mythical entity that nobody knows much about, and that they’re not like the rest of us. Hardly anyone got to know her because she was seen as odd, different — weird. There were a small number of Orthodox Jews in our town and people commented on their “weird” clothes and strange ways that marked them out even more as different from the rest of us. This was alongside a backdrop of young kids joking that you were a Jew if you picked up money you found on the ground. When you’re a kid, you don’t really understand the gravity of these things.

Growing up in a small town with many bigoted and entrenched views, I knew I wanted to grow and understand the world and its cultures so went to university to study anthropology and sociology. One of my closest uni friends was Jewish. She wasn’t weird or odd like I had been told back home, she was exactly like me. That realisation is hardly a breakthrough today, but growing up in a racist town brought huge challenges in terms of growth and development — you had to want to grow and develop in the first place and not many people back home were doing that.

When I started university I hardly ever heard anything about Israel. In fact, I don’t think we even discussed Israel when I was studying between 1997–2000. The biggest causes everyone was concerned about when I was at uni was Stephen Lawrence and the unfairness of tuition fees on the poorest students. A few years after I graduated, I started to hear more and more about Israel; it’s criminal human rights abuses and treatment of vulnerable citizens and neighbours. It seemed odd to me that the people who were so closely linked to the Holocaust would carry out atrocities of their own on vulnerable people. I needed, and wanted, to understand this.

Then I met my partner. A Jewish Israeli. At first we were just friends. She opened my eyes to what it was like to live in Israel as a child, as a teen, as a young adult. As someone who’s never been conscripted or experienced Scud missiles being fired at me and fleeing to a bomb shelter in the middle of the night, or living with a secure bomb room in my building, or going clubbing with a gas mask, or watching out for knives on buses, I realised how much I didn’t know, how lucky and privileged I was to not have experienced these things. I was acutely aware that there was so much I didn’t know about the experiences of being Jewish, of being Israeli, of being an individual growing up in daily conflict and terror.

Human rights abuses are not ok. Period. I condemn Israel’s nefarious actions as much as my partner does. When Israel’s government is wrong, I welcome the condemnation. But, what I started to see from friends, was the palpable anger and hatred for Israelis and their country in the name of making justified criticism. I had countless friends tell me that Israel ran America, they controlled other governments, that “wasn’t it odd that Jews are often bankers and lawyers”, that Israel was protected because they were powerful, and even worse — that Israel use what happened to Jews in WW2 to justify their actions as a state.

Over the years I have watched my partner grow increasingly uncomfortable telling anyone where she’s from for fear of judgement. I’ve had close friends criticise Israel’s right to exist while knowing full well my partner is Israeli. I’ve had a previous boss ask me if my partner taught people to shoot Palestinian children when discovering she had been a rifle instructor in the Israeli army. I’ve seen her nationality reduced to nothing but a political football about whether her country should even exist in the first place. It’s been hurtful, and knowing that her mother lost almost all of her family in Auschwitz, it’s been scary. I’ve felt an increasing need to be protective.

I’ve learnt about Zionism. I’ve read about Herzl. I understood that his aim was to give the Jews, who had been persecuted for hundreds of years, a place where they could be safe. Where they could feel they belonged. Where they wouldn’t be turfed out. Where they wouldn’t be blamed for every conceivable wrong that befell a country or a neighbourhood. It could have been in Uganda. It could have been anywhere and this, to me, seemed perfectly legitimate. Imagine my surprise when all I started to hear about Zionism was that it was evil. That it was comparable to evangelical Christians and religious zealots. My partner considers herself a Zionist. She doesn’t believe Palestine shouldn’t exist or that Israel should have the whole place to themselves yet people will claim that Zionism is the route of all that is wrong about Israel today. How bizarre that many of its opponents scoff when people conflate socialism and communism, regularly espousing the differences, but barely dig into the many different types of Zionism that exist to better inform themselves. Instead, what we hear is Zionism instead of what the actual distinction is. It’s more likely people are talking about Religious Zionism rather than anything else. I only wish people would better learn the distinctions instead of saying “it’s not Jews, it’s the Zionists”. People say it’s antisemitic to conflate Zionism with being Jewish. Of course not all Jews have a type of Zionism they believe in, but to say the two are completely unrelated is a bit naive. People have painted Zionism as evil — of course nobody wants to now say, “actually, this type of Zionism means something to me”. People have been told over and over it’s evil. Who wants to associate with something defined as evil by the rest of the world?

Israel has the same disease that the rest of the world now has — a dominance of right wing, populist strongmen. It wasn’t always this way. Israel’s foundations were rooted in socialism. People ran Kibbutzim to inspire community, working together, helping each other, sharing resources and skills. Inevitably there were people who didn’t believe in that ethos and they ended up running the country. It’s a tragedy for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

I’ll be honest with you, I never voted Labour until late in life (and no, I’ve never voted Tory either…. and, don’t judge me I did vote Lib Dems… only once and never again…. and SNP when I lived in Scotland and was sick of Westminster) so I’ve felt politically homeless for a while. As a student I hated Blair for Iraq and the u-turn on introducing tuition fees to university students. I was a vocal opponent of the Blair/Bush era. I felt like there would never be anyone I could really vote for.

Then you came along and I felt hopeful.

You seemed to be saying all the right things. That discourse was important, that working together was important, that common ground was important. Yes! Yes! Yes! I thought — finally! I took the plunge and voted for you. My partner also voted for you with a sense of trepidation despite what others in her community were saying. There were rumours about antisemitism and there were many debates between us about whether you were really the right man. I was really conscious that I didn’t want to get sucked into media campaigns against you and tried really hard to look for the full context in every claim against you. Because I did, my support for you started to wane.

When you did this talk, I went in search of the full footage, eager to see what you really said. I watched it and had a gut feeling that something that you said just didn’t sit right with me. Your comment about “thankfully silent Zionists in the audience” and “they clearly have two problems — one is they don’t want to study history and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time — probably all their lives — they don’t understand English irony either”. I was astounded that you had implied people in an audience, who you claimed were Zionists (again, without defining what sort of Zionists they were — not that it should matter), should be seen and not heard. You then went on to imply that having lived here for a long time they were still clueless about British culture… in a way implying that they were not like the rest of us. This felt like something I couldn’t sit comfortably with but I still continued to give you the benefit of the doubt.

When you questioned why a mural with classic antisemitic tropes should be removed, well, that astounded me. How could anyone who has been an anti-racist all his life defend a mural that depicts Jews in all of the classic ways we’ve seen for hundreds of years? People say you didn’t realise what it contained — then why did you defend it? People say you apologised and it should be forgotten about but as you’ve recently stated “one antisemite is one too many”. What is that mural if not antisemitic? What does that say about the artist you supported? When is the time to condemn antisemitism if not in this case? I really don’t understand and I’ve yet to hear anyone explain this to me in a way that I can.

Then there were the whistleblowers and their treatment….. and now the outcome of the EHRC report.

Every single one of us has prejudices. So many of your supporters say you’re the most anti-racist person they’ve ever met. I can’t help but feel that while you have put your money where your mouth is on many occasions, this stringent defence that you are a pillar of anti-racism is a strange one. When Black Lives Matter sparked a wave of action, huge numbers of people who believed themselves to be anti-racist (including myself) purchased books such as Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race. Large numbers of us reflected and asked ourselves questions like: “What am I doing to address my prejudices?”, “How can I better educate myself so that I’m doing all that I can to be an ally to my friends and colleagues?”, “How can we reflect and address the shameful aspects of our history to try and reframe the conversation?”, and “How can I be better?”. Anti-racists proved that being anti-racist is a continuous process. We still need to learn, we still need to challenge ourselves about how much we really do understand racism. These are all questions I have asked myself in order to grow, to develop, to address my own privilege and views. To my friends back home, I’m probably one of the most anti-racist people they’ve ever met, but I still need to educate myself. It’s not finished. I’m not the ultimate embodiment of anti-racism.

This level of critical self-reflection doesn’t seem to apply to you on the issue of contemporary left antisemitism. I’ve not heard you say you’re going to re-evaluate the strains of antisemitism within the left and try to develop a better understanding of how it manifests. Seeing as so many people are telling you it’s an issue, that’s surely your duty as an anti-racist to ensure you are fully informed? While you agree that antisemitism is possible on the left and that anyone claiming there is no antisemitism in Labour is wrong. You also said this:

“One antisemite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media. That combination hurt Jewish people and must never be repeated.”

There is so much wrong with this. You’re telling people who feel wronged and victimised by a culture under your leadership that they have been victims of a campaign that was “overstated for political reasons”. Imagine telling people of colour that their feelings about systemic racism are overstated for political reasons. Or even, for a second, imagine how it felt after Grenfell to be told by Jacob-Rees Mogg that you should have used common sense to flee a burning building. Better still, let’s imagine that a similar outcome was delivered on Tory islamophobia and Boris Johnson said “One islamophobe is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media. That combination hurt Muslims and must never be repeated.” There. Would. Be. Outrage. Yet, for some reason people are still defending you.

I won’t call you an antisemite. What I will say is you are someone so entrenched in your ideology that you’ve lost the ability to reflect and grow. If you can’t entertain you’ve got something wrong and your solution is to come out with a statement that is the very definition of gaslighting, then something is wrong. People have been hurt because of what happened under your leadership and ultimately, the buck stopped with you as leader.

What was needed from you was a statement like this:

“I’m horrified by the outcome of this report. I’m very sorry that this happened under my leadership and I hope we can all make the necessary changes to make our Party a place that Jewish people can feel safe, respected and heard. Nobody should feel threatened because of who they are and the Labour Party should be working to educate those individuals who feel it is ok to undermine, harrass and intimidate others because of who they are and where they come from. If they can’t do that, then there should be no place for them in our Party.”

Whatever the truth of what happened is, an independent report should have drawn a line under it. What you’ve done is to kick sand all over that line and continued a civil war that should have been finished by this report. Do you really want the Tories out? Do you really want Labour to be a party people like me feel they can vote for? If you do, then why won’t you put your principles aside and think of the greater goal — a unified party. A place where Jews like my partner don’t feel ashamed that they are Jewish or Israeli. That people don’t hear “I suspect the hand of Israel in this whole process” in relation to discussions about middle eastern conflicts which fans the flames of the attitudes people like my partner are hiding from.

Jeremy — this isn’t about you. This isn’t about your quest for socialism. This is about real people, real feelings and real fears.

I’ve seen the damage left-wing antisemitism has done to my family. When kids at school say to my 15 year old step-daughter “Ah, so you’re Jewish and Israeli — what are your views on Israel?” and expect her to justify her existence by taking a side to determine whether she’s a good or a bad Jew, there is a problem. Just because it’s not about swastikas or grotesque caricatures does not make it any less potent or frightening for Jewish people. It is not less antisemitic.

There needs to be better education of what antisemitism actually is and how it manifests. It’s not always riding on the coat tails of Brown Shirts and Swastikas. If you really wanted to help, this is something you could address with your platform. But instead you’ve chosen to be completely tone deaf on the issue because you believe that just by being left-wing, just by being on the “good side” you are free from doing anything wrong.

I hope that if you read this, you will actually take a moment to stop and think about what I’ve said. Sure, I’m nobody, I’m one person with an opinion and there are countless others who will say I’m wrong but as you are a person who believes in discourse, in speaking with people who don’t agree with you, I would expect this to be a challenge you would want to take up.

But will you?

P.S. The only other political party to be investigated by the EHRC is the BNP! THE BNP!! That’s not good company to be keeping, is it?

P.P.S. For those saying this is long, or too long, it’s hard to distill everything I’ve thought about into a digestible tweet. You’re lucky I didn’t add more because I keep thinking about what else I could have added.