SHARMINI PERIES: It's The Real News Network.
I'm Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore.
A curious thing has been happening to progressive
members of the Labour Party in Britain ever
since Jeremy Corbyn was elected head of the
party.
The party has been purging members who express
solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for
freedom.
They are branded an anti-Semite and then kicked
out of the party.
In a meeting held by a group of Labour against
the witch hunt are three expelled Jewish members
of the party.
Members of Momentum, a progressive movement
within the party, came together to discuss
how anti-Semitism was used to kick them out
because they were progressive members of the
Labour Party.
Let's listen.
LABOUR PARTY MEMBER:I was suspended, was it,
22 months ago, March 2016.
I was suspended, they said, “For comments
I was alleged to have made.”
It was nothing more.
That was it.
I couldn't get anything out of them, they
didn't return my correspondence at all.
Two weeks later, April the 2nd, I learned
something about why I was suspended because
it appeared via the Daily Telegraph and The
Times.
That was how I put together that it was the
anti-Semitism witch hunt.
I had dared to say that Israel's marriage
laws bore comparison with Nazi Germany.
Nazi Germany, the Nuremberg Laws, Jews could
not marry non-Jews in Israel.
If you're Jewish you can't marry a non-Jew.
SHARMINI PERIES: On to talk about this with
me is Richard Kuper.
He's a member of the Steering Group for Jewish
Voice for Labour.
He is a founding member of Jews for Justice
for Palestine.
I thank you so much for joining us today,
Richard.
RICHARD KUPER: Thank you.
SHARMINI PERIES: Richard, several members
of the Labour Party, who are Jews, have been
accused of anti-Semitism and then expelled
from the party.
Do you believe that this is to rid the party
of progressives?
RICHARD KUPER: Yes.
It isn't only Jews who are being accused of
activities that are held to be undermining
the party.
We have a byzantine disciplinary process in
which accusations are anonymous, people are
not told what they are accused of, and they
find themselves in a state of administrative
suspension, sometimes for weeks, sometimes
months, sometimes years.
Among the reasons given for these suspensions,
quite often, has been alleged anti-Semitism.
SHARMINI PERIES: Now, Jackie Walker was kicked
out of the Labour Party then, I believe, reinstated
and then kicked out again.
What was the particular reason or rationale
they provided for doing this?
RICHARD KUPER: It was alleged anti-Semitism.
She wasn't actually kicked out, she was suspended,
which is a state of animation where you wait,
as I said, sometimes for very long periods
before there is any progress in your case.
But during that period you are not allowed
to take an active part in party activities.
She was originally suspended because of comments
on a Facebook page of hers in private conversation
to do with the Atlantic Slave Trade and her
ancestors, who on her mother's side, were
Jewish in the Caribbean.
She was reinstated and she was then suspended
again for questions she raised during an anti-Semitism
training session at the Labour Party Conference
where people were invited to express their
doubts, their queries and their arguments
in that session, supposedly a protected space,
supposedly private.
She was filmed, a film was released and she
was suspended again.
Nothing in what she said, in my view, was
anti-Semitic.
SHARMINI PERIES: Now, the Israeli Lobby, if
it is an indication what they manage to achieve
here in the United States, has a very powerful
presence also in the UK.
Do you see that they are behind some of these
suspensions and reinstatements and having
people branded as anti-Semites, which really
hampers their involvement in political activity?
RICHARD KUPER: We suspect so.
We know there is an Israeli ministry of propaganda,
Hasbara, which spends an inordinate amount
of money on defending Israel and on undermining
its critics.
We know that many people in the UK work to
trawl through Facebook and Twitter feeds in
order to find any possible statements that
might implicate people in some criticism of
Israel that might be held to go beyond the
pale.
So, we have our suspicions.
We also know from the Al Jazeera program on
The Lobby, which was aired last year, that
there is some direct involvement, yes.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right.
So, tell us about some of these very concrete
examples we have for their interference in
the political affairs of the UK and Labour
Party in particular.
RICHARD KUPER: Well, we only know really what
there was in the Al Jazeera program, The Lobby,
where an undercover agent was discovered working
out of the Israeli embassy, meeting with various
people in the Labour Party, promising funds
available and so on.
I would recommend that people look at that
program.
I think it is very telling, and the allegations
made in the program have never been adequately
answered.
But we also know is that because accusations
are anonymous, we don't know whether the Israeli
Lobby is directly involved in any of the cases
of suspension, because people are not told
who has made the accusations.
It is as simple as that.
It is a snoopers charter, if you like, the
current rules or the way in which the current
rules in the Labour Party are applied.
And they are simply unacceptable.
As Shami Chakrabarti, who was commissioned
by the Labour Party to inquire into anti-Semitism
almost two years ago now, made quite clear
in her report, in the Chakrabarti report,
and she called for a disciplinary procedure
in which people knew what they were accused
of, knew, unless there were good reasons otherwise,
who had accused them, in which they did not
learn of their suspension from the Labour
Party by a journalist from the Jewish Chronicle
phoning them up and saying, "I hear you've
been suspended."
She called for transparent procedures for
natural justice or due process, and she called
also for educational rather than disciplinary
approaches to dealing with issues of discipline
in the Labour Party, that first of all people
should be spoken to, there should be attempts
to inform a resolution of conflicts and so
on, and only if the case is of such seriousness
should it proceed to a quasi-judicial inquiry.
None of this is what has taken place at the
moment.
Perhaps I can illustrate with a good example
from last week.
Glyn Secker, who is the Secretary of Jewish
Voice for Labour, received a letter from the
Head of Disputes of the Labour Party, out
of the blue, suspending him because there
might be some allegations of anti-Semitism
against him.
Five days later his suspension is withdrawn.
They said they had investigated and now there
was no longer any reason to suspend him.
It's an absurd process.
Suspend first and then investigate.
He should've been told what the accusations
were.
He should've been pulled for interview if
need be, and only then, if the issue couldn't
be resolved, should there have been any further
proceedings.
Now, of course, Glyn Secker is Secretary of
Jewish Voice for Labor, and I don't think
it's an accident that he was targeted.
It is a shot across the bars of all those
in the Labour Party who are fighting for Palestinian
rights and who are fighting for the general
kind of orientation that Jeremy Corbyn represents
in the new Labour Party.
SHARMINI PERIES: Right.
Now, Richard, there was also a very high profile
figure, Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London,
who remains suspended, and that remains in
effect, and apparently it was also extended
a few days ago.
Now, Ken Livingstone, unlike the other three
that were suspended that we know of, or that
have a profile: Jackie Walker, Moshe Machover
and Tony Greenstein, he is not a Jew.
So, does this mean that he is treated differently
by the right wing members of the Labour Party?
RICHARD KUPER: I don't think so at all.
They are really targeting people who they
feel are supportive of the new project of
the Labour Party, and anything is grist to
the mill.
Ken Livingstone was, in my opinion, rather
foolish in some statements he made a couple
of years ago in an interview at the height
of one of the crisis about anti-Semitism in
the Labour Party.
He said some things about Hitler supporting
Zionism, which I do not think are defendable,
although he was alluding to the Haavara Transfer
Agreement between the Zionist Federation in
Germany and the German Economics Ministry.
And there is an unfortunate history of collaboration
between those in the period, particularly
in order to undermine the Jewish boycott of
Nazi Germany which had been enforced since
the Nazis came to power earlier in 1933.
But the way he presented it was absurd.
He was suspended for two years and that ought
to be an end of it.
He has now been told that his sentence of
two years suspension will be reviewed and
may be extended.
I think it's partly people settling old scores.
Ken stood against the Labour Party under Tony
Blair for Mayor of London and defeated the
official Labour Party candidate.
He had led the Greater London Council in the
1980s, and there were many in the Labour Party
who did not like him at all.
I think a lot of the issue with Ken is the
settling of old scores.
The Jewish Board of Deputies also had scores
to settle from the '80s when Ken had refused
to accept them vetting who grants went to
in the area under the GLC’s control.
But the Board of Deputies, believe it or not,
had demanded the right to vet which Jewish
groups got money from the GLC and Ken rightly
refused to have anything to do with that demand.
So, there are a lot of people who have been
waiting a long time to get him, and this is
possibly an opportunity they have.
It has very little to do with anti-Semitism
of any kind.
It has nothing to do with anti-Semitism of
any kind to be brutal about it.
SHARMINI PERIES: Now Richard, let's talk a
little bit about the accusation of anti-Semitism
as a political tool or political weapon.
In the repressed Al Jazeera report about the
Israeli Lobby in the US, which was supposed
to be a sequel for the documentary that you
were referring to earlier that was aired in
the UK, a member of one of the major Israeli
Lobby groups says that anti-Semitism as a
smear is not what it used to be.
It is still being used with great vigor within
the Labour Party.
But what about other parties in the UK?
Is it also being equally applied there?
RICHARD KUPER: No, not at all.
It's only being used in the Labour Party and,
in my view, it is very much connected to the
campaign against Jeremy Corbyn.
There are people who are unreconciled to the
fact that he has the support of the mass membership
of the party.
The majority of MPs, it must be remembered,
were selected before Jeremy became leader,
many of them under Tony Blair's day when candidates
were simply imposed in particular constituencies,
and some of them are very resentful of his
being leader.
Even more to the point, the machinery of the
party is one that was almost entirely constructed
as a top-down machine of control in the Tony
Blair days, and that is virtually unreconstructed.
It needs to be changed, and in the meantime,
I think part of what we're seeing is that
machinery which felt it had a right to control
and to dominate the Labour Party reeking vengeance
on the new regime.
Things are changing, the General Secretary
of the Labour Party has resigned, there is
an election in a week or two for a new General
Secretary and we're all optimistic that there
will be some changes coming about.
In particular, we look forward to the implementation
of the recommendations of the Chakrabarti
report on disciplinary procedures which is
now, I think, 21 months since its recommendations
were adopted by the Labour Party and nothing
has been done to implement them.
I think we're going to see rapid change on
that.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Richard.
Finally, what does this mean in terms of Jeremy
Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party?
RICHARD KUPER: He is a leader of a very divided
party, having many currents within it.
And it's his job as leader to build coalitions,
to take progressive policies forward.
He has a long record of being a supporter
of Palestinian rights and I have no doubt
that he is still absolutely committed to them.
He has been a supporter of human rights and
fights against depression anywhere and everywhere,
and has a very long and honorable record.
He is known to be an anti-racist.
There is no way in which he is anti-Semitic
in the slightest.
And indeed, very few people make an accusation
of anti-Semitism against him.
They merely say he tolerates the situation...on
the left is allowed to flourish.
It's so much rubbish.
People have been suspended for anti-Semitism
almost immediately these accusations have
been made.
The problem is not that the party hasn't acted
to suspend them, the problem is that the party
hasn't acted to resolve the issues.
Part of this is because what counts as anti-Semitism
is really in question.
In the past, we used to know anti-Semitism
was hatred of Jews, discrimination against
Jews, because they were Jews, a form of racism.
No question about it.
Since the early 2000s, there has been an attempt
to redefine anti-Semitism to include certain
criticisms of Israel that some people feel
go too far.
Now, there is no right not to be offended.
Some of these criticisms may indeed be offensive
to some people.
They may even be wrong.
That isn't the point.
The point is that anti-Semitism towards Israel
would only be there if the criticisms of Israel
manifested hatred towards Israel because it
was a Jewish entity, whereas most of the criticism
of Israel overwhelmingly, in my experience,
is criticism of Israel because of what it
does, because of what it continues to do to
the Palestinians, because of the continuation
of its illegal occupation, because of the
housing demolitions, because of its racist
discrimination against its own Palestinian
citizens, the Bedouin, in an-Naqab, who's
villages have been erased time after time
after time.
This is why people get upset about Israel
and this is what the overwhelming criticism
of Israel is about.
An entity which seems to be increasingly authoritarian,
increasingly committed to absorbing the whole
of the West Bank, increasingly dismissive
of Palestinian rights, increasingly discriminatory
internally in terms of what rights it accords
to its Jewish citizens and what rights it
accords to the others who are clearly regarded
by the ruling group in Israel as inferior.
This is what it is about.
Sometimes, some criticisms of Israel may be
exaggerated or may be expressed badly.
Very few that I have seen can be regarded
as anti-Semitic in the sense of expressing
any hatred towards Jews.
And if there are any like that, of course,
they should be dealt with.
I don't think many of them, even the ones
I've seen express an ingrained anti-Semitism.
They express a criticism of Israel which describes
itself as the Jewish State in which people
sometimes are unable to make the distinction
between what Israel does and Jews' responsibility
worldwide for those actions.
That requires discussion, education, and so
on.
And then, if anyone remains committed to an
anti-Semitic worldview, they should not have
a place in the Labour Party.
I have no problem with that.
But that is not what is going on.
Instead, discussion about Israel-Palestine
is becoming harder and harder.
People are terrified.
People walk on eggshells, scared of getting
it wrong, scared that the wrath of some section
of the Israel Lobby will come down upon them
and that they will be criticized, reported
anonymously, suspended, whatever.
This really has to change.
It is quite unacceptable in a democratic party
like the Labour Party.
SHARMINI PERIES: Richard, I thank you so much
for joining us.
We've learnt so much from this discussion.
I hope that we could learn more.
If the Al Jazeera documentary, the sequel
to the UK one is actually released here, we
might be able to have some evidence for those
who are doing similar work as you are in the
UK, here in the United States.
So, I thank you so much for joining us today.
RICHARD KUPER: Thank you very much.
SHARMINI PERIES: And thank you for joining
us on The Real News Network.
