Reply To: Oswald Mosley.

[Siderite]

I don’t think it’s either/or. If Islamophobic chants or statements were being put forward, I don’t think the excuse would be that Islamist terror attacks and insurgencies in the Sahel are worse, therefore we should just ignore it. So, yes, when the ‘people who just want peace’ call for death, there will be shock and outrage. They are calling for more war and bloodshed because some are naive and others are more bothered about destroying Israel than stopping war (hence why Palestinian peace voices on twitter get called Mossad/Israeli/Zionist shills by some on the left).

Anyway, the one thing that stuck in my craw more than most was Bob Vylan’s little rant about Zionists controlling the music industry. No “we just want to criticise Likud” about that. Pure antisemitic conspiracies about evil Jews in control of others with nothing about criticising a war, but will be made out to be when highlighted. There should be nothing wrong with criticising Israel; the problem is that many on the left go into attacking Jews and others will say it’s just ‘legitimate criticism of Israel’ when these actions are pointed out. You can criticise Israel without going into rants about baby killers, smashing up synagogues, ripping off Israeli hostage stickers and hurling abuse at Jewish people. Antisemitic incidents have rapidly risen over the past few years and many on the left will ignore it and choose to focus on some examples where someone is being too eager to use the term, ignoring the rest, and acting like the right when they do the same towards claims of racism towards black people. I will believe the left stands for opposing racism when they confront this, instead of palming it off as legitimate criticism of Israel.

I got into an argument with someone on social media yesterday who had claimed Jews called war on Nazi Germany and that Mossad did 9/11. Of course, when called out, they went into a little spiel about how they’re just legitimately criticising Israel (even bragging about what a good little anti-racist they were). Nonsense – these are distortions of the truth and play into the very antisemitic canards, but too many on the left ignore it. And, while it’s not all, it’s too common and too commonly ignored.