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In July 2018, Britain's three Jewish newspapers published a joint editorial to speak against Labour antisemitism. With the conclusion of the EHRC enquiry, we can go back to that editorial and see if it bore out. Thread. https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/voice-of-the-jewish-news-united-we-stand/
The editorial used strong alarming tone, going far beyond previous condemnations of Labour. We can now say that the alarm was justified. According to the EHRC, Labour leadership "at best, did not do enough to prevent antisemitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it". 2/
The EHRC found that Labour was responsible for discrimination and harassment against Jews. This is serious enough. Does it justify the newspapers' statement that a Labour government was "existential threat to Jewish life"? I didn't think so then and I don't think so now. 3/
But the main focus of the piece was Labour's position on Israel. "Labour makes a distinction between racial antisemitism targeting Jews (unacceptable) and political antisemitism targeting Israel (acceptable)." 4/
And this failure to tackle "political antisemitism" is what the editors thought stood at the heart of the matter. This required the adoption of the IHRA definition, with specific references to Israel. Here was the problem; here was the solution. 5/
Labour faced a binary choice: "implement IHRA in full or be seen by all decent people as an institutionally racist, antisemitic party ... September is finally make or break." 6/
But the editorial severely failed to diagnose Labour's problems. It was not that Labour did well on identifying "racial antisemitism". The opposite is true. Labour failed catastrophically to identify and call out the well familiar tropes of antisemitism. 7/
Rothschild conspiracies, backstabbing Jews, allegiance to foreign powers, Holocaust denial, all these circulated, primarily in social media, sometimes with vague references to Palestine, sometimes not. 8/
And it was these examples to classic antisemitic tropes which led the EHRC to determine that Labour breached the Equality Act and discriminated against Jews - not any statements on Israel. 9/
September 2018 was not make or break. Labour adopted the IHRA definition in full, but this made no material difference to its handling of the problem. I was sceptical of the IHRA definition at the time, and I continue to think it is a flawed text.
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As I wrote at the time, "it seems that the question of what can and cannot be said on Israel has blinded participants in this debate from seeing the bigger picture ". 11/ https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-how-to-protect-british-jews-from-labour-s-institutional-anti-semitism-1.6315672
I understand the circumstances that led to the demand for IHRA in Labour. The party adopted it and backtracked; it did not listen to its Jewish affiliates and community institutions. This has created justified anger which led to the demand for the definition to be adopted. 12/
Whatever you think of the IHRA, it should be clear from reading the EHRC report, that the focus on what the newspapers called "political antisemitism" severely misunderstood the problem. 13/
Throughout the last few years, we've seen elements in the left who argued this was about Israel. We've heard right-wing Jews who argued this was about Israel. But Labour's antisemitism problem was not about Israel. It was about antisemitism. /end
