Labour/Labor pains
IN the wake of the anti-Semitism scandal that has shaken the British Labour Party to its core in recent days, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop urged Australia’s Labor Party to tackle anti-Semitic attitudes within its own ranks.
IN the wake of the anti-Semitism scandal that has shaken the British Labour Party to its core in recent days, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop urged Australia’s Labor Party to tackle anti-Semitic attitudes within its own ranks.
Over the past two weeks, the UK Labour Party has been rocked by revelations of members making anti-Semitic comments, with its leaders accused of failing to heed the warning signs and take the matter seriously.
In the wake of mounting pressure, on Monday alone, three Labour councillors were suspended after it was revealed they had made comments comparing Israel to ISIS, comparing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Holocaust, and suggesting on Facebook it might have been wiser to create Israel in America and that Israel could be relocated “even now”.
The disciplinary action follows the suspension last week of two other Labour figures: former London mayor Ken Livingstone, who claimed Hitler had supported Zionism, and Bradford West Labour MP Naz Shah, who in 2014 also promoted the notion of Israel’s removal to the US and stated that “the Jews are rallying”.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has now launched an investigation into anti-Semitism within the party. However, as a vehement anti-Israel critic himself who has hailed Hamas and Hezbollah as “our friends”, he has been condemned from both within and outside the party for doing too little, too late.
Speaking to The AJN, Bishop said, “While I will not comment on UK domestic political issues, I strongly urge the Leader of the Labor Party, Bill Shorten, to put an end to the strong support for the anti-Semitic BDS campaign within the ALP and union movement here in Australia.”
NSW Liberal government whip Peter Phelps went even further, declaring, “There is absolutely an anti-Semitic element within the Labor Party. It’s normally disguised through anti-Israel sentiment; however, there are a number of excellent Jewish members of the Labor Party trying to keep it to a minimum.”
Phelps noted, “At the last Labor conference there were multiple condemnations of Israel and not one of the less-free Arab world.
“Once upon a time, there was the Israel of the kibbutz and Israel was the underdog. But Israel got successful and it suddenly became the antithesis of what the left stands for,” he said.
However, communal leaders were more cautious about drawing comparisons between the ALP and the Labour Party in the UK.
Jeremy Jones, director of international affairs at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, told The AJN Britain’s Labour Party crisis “shows the danger of tolerating the intolerable for too long”.
“People were given a free pass to be racist bigots because of a combination of claiming they were making political comments, when it was beyond political commentary,” he observed.
“We can be fortunate that Australia does not have the same tradition of anti-Semitism. Our Labor Party has many sensible, good people in its leadership, none of whom bear any similarity with Jeremy Corbyn,” he said.
Zionist Federation of Australia president Danny Lamm concurred it was unlikely the ALP would follow “this perverse, overt anti-Semitic behaviour … it’s not something the Australian electorate would accept”.
“Furthermore, I don’t think the ALP houses members of that persuasion.”
Both Jones and Lamm were emphatic in distinguishing between the anti-Israel stance of ALP figures such as Bob Carr and anti-Semitic statements made by British politicians, rejecting the idea that the former foreign minister’s activism against Israel’s policies could ever lead to an anti-Semitic culture in the ALP.
Meanwhile, writing in The AJN this week, Melbourne Ports Labor MP Michael Danby contrasted the UK situation with Australia. “Whatever our domestic political differences, as we approach our national test of wills in a federal election, we will never sink as low as UK Labour,” he wrote.
Danby also stressed that under the ALP’s leadership, the party’s “steadfast opposition to anti-Semitism and support for Israel is not in question,” adding, “The Australian Jewish community is thankful that no such parallel to the debate in the UK will ever be entertained in Australia.”
For full coverage, see this week’s AJN.
PETER KOHN
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