Summary
The anti-Semitism crisis engulfing the Labour party has been described by leading Jewish figures as “a taint of national and historic shame”. Jeremy Corbyn has acknowledged failures in dealing with allegations and the party has now published new materials designed to educate members about anti-Semitic tropes. Nevertheless, Labour is being investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission for racism – an indignity that brackets them with the BNP. According to President Macron, anti-Semitism in Europe is at its highest level since 1945. Stereotypes and ignorance abound. A quarter of the 7,000 Europeans who took part in a recent CNN/ComRes poll believe Jews have too much influence in business and finance, while a third admitted that they knew little or nothing about the Holocaust. Less clear cut is the relationship between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. There is an argument about where the line is, and who has the right to draw it. Since Zionism has at its heart a belief in the Jewish right to self-determination, many Jews believe that those who oppose the state of Israel are anti-Semites. Others – many Jews included – don’t think that anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic, and argue that saying so is merely a way of ignoring Palestinian grievances. Anti-Semitism may be the oldest ethnic hatred, but is it just another form of racism? Or is it a distinct and uniquely pernicious prejudice which must be understood in the context of centuries of violent oppression, dehumanisation and genocide? Anti-Semitism: what is it? what isn’t it? and how can it be defeated?
Producer: Dan Tierney
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a programme from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:04.3 | Good evening. For more than three years now, the Labour Party, which has often talked as if it had a monopoly of virtue, has wrestled with accusations that it's institutionally prone to one of the oldest of vices. |
| 0:16.6 | Anti-Semitism has a long and terrible history. It's by no means confined to the left, but the |
| 0:21.4 | picture that's been painted, most recently in a damaging expose on the BBC's Panorama programme, |
| 0:26.4 | is that it has grown largely unchecked in the leftward shift of the party under Jeremy Corbyn. |
| 0:31.9 | The central allegation is that many activists associate all Jews with the capitalism they detest, |
| 0:41.9 | and the state of Israel, which they regard as oppressors of those with whom they sympathise. |
| 0:46.5 | The party is now being investigated for racism by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. |
| 0:50.8 | Labour says there have only been isolated instances of anti-Semitism, |
| 0:53.1 | and the party is determined to root them out. |
| 0:58.7 | Only this week its members are being offered lessons in how not to be anti-Semitism and the party is determined to root them out. Only this week its members are being offered lessons in how not to be anti-Semitic. |
| 1:00.2 | Two questions here. |
| 1:04.9 | Where do you draw the line between criticism of Israel and prejudice against Jews between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism? |
| 1:07.8 | And is anti-Semitism just another form of racism, or given its dreadful history, something uniquely pernicious? |
| 1:14.4 | That's our moral maze tonight. |
| 1:15.8 | The panel, Melanie Phillips, social commentator on the Times, Mona Siddiqui, professor of Islamic and inter-religious studies at Edinburgh University, |
| 1:23.0 | the chief executive of the RSA, Matthew Taylor, and the historian Tim Stanley. |
| 1:29.2 | Melanie Phillips is a Jew, you have more than a little stake in this. |
| 1:33.5 | Indeed. I mean, in my view, anti-Semitism is unique in its obsessional imputations of world conspiracy |
| 1:41.1 | and unique malice against the Jewish people based entirely on lies. |
| 1:46.1 | Anti-Zionism or anti-Israelism has exactly the same unique characteristics, and I believe this is |
| 1:51.8 | no coincidence. That is not to say that all who subscribe to this discourse is an anti-Semite. |
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