UNDERSTANDING ANTI-SEMITISM and JEREMY CORBYN
As a proponent of Scottish Independence I have little in common with the Labour Party. However, the recent sustained attacks on Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-semitic because of his unwillingness to recognise specific examples of anti-semitism within the IHRA definition that effectively negates virtually all criticism of Israel leaves me very concerned. There can be little doubt Israel is or behaves as an Apartheid State and they have amassed 65 UN Resolution breaches against them, which is more than every other country in the world together. That fact alone must surely attract the critical eyes of the world to adjudge their behaviour in the Middle East and especially Palestine.
The term ‘anti-semitism’ in purest terms relates to people who speak the Semite language; mainly Arabs, parts of North Africa and the Jewish people. Most Semitic people are non-Jews. However, it is clear in the vernacular that the term is used in relation to Jewish people. The Cambridge dictionary defines anti-semitism as ‘having or showing a strong dislike of Jewish people, or treating them in a cruel and unfair way’. NB. this is not a legal definition, it is a definition of the sematics. [semantic]
I recognise that ‘racism’ is defined in the UK as a Hate Crime and the Cambridge dictionary defines this as ‘ someone who believes that other races are not as good as their own and therefore treats them unfairly’.
Law abiding citizens in the UK are not racists. Any person who behaves in the manner described as racist commits a crime.
I digress here. If I wanted to introduce a new law against ‘Deliberately killing another human’ there are a number of obvious problems. Firstly there is already a law called murder that completely covers my new law. If my new law was to be accepted then it would be virtually impossible for the judicial system to decide which of these two laws should prevail and whether both laws attract the same burden of proof and remedies. Therefor, in law it would be totally infeasible to accept my suggestion.
If I was then to suggest a crime of ‘hatred of Catholics’ this would beggar the question; ‘why would this be a different crime to hatred of Protestants?’. If this was not the case then Catholics would be considered in law to be somehow superior to Protestants or vice versa. Of course this is a nonsense because the law is blind to religion. Or is it?
If the law in the UK accepts that Racial Hatred and Anti-semitism can co-exist, albeit the only difference is the latter is an offence against a specific people of the Jewish faith; then logically Jewish people have a different status to non-Jewish people, whether superior or inferior.
My final point is that if Jewish people insist that Anti-semitism can co-exist with Racial Hatred as a crime then it would be logical to believe that they are not arguing from a position of inferiority. Therefor, if they are not claiming inferiority there are only two possibilities:
- They see themselves as equal therefore they are covered by the law of Racial Hatred, or
- They consider themselves superior therefor in the eyes of the law, they fall into the definition of Racist.
In conclusion to the analysis, the insistence of the crime of anti-semitism is in itself and by definition a ‘racist act’.
Now let us consider the Crown Prosecution Service’s definition of Hate Crime by the Director General, Alison Saunders: ‘When someone is hostile to another person because of their disability, nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity and they show their hostility in intimidation, harassment, damaging property or violence, it is a Hate Crime’.
In the case of Jeremy Corbyn, who is a non Jew which is the opposite of a specific religion and therefor falls within the context of a religious orientation, he is being accused of being an antisemitic. Whether he is or not is irrelevant in this case. The CPS definition makes it abundantly clear that holding a belief is not a crime. However, acting in a hostile manner against a person whom you believe holds such a view and calling for that person to lose their job, and courts other’s support to increase the pressure on that person to be removed from office can only be described as intimidation and harassment.
It gets worse. Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit Secretary is Sir Keir Starmer who is a barrister and the predecessor to Alison Saunders as the Director General of the CPS (2008 – 2013) who defined Hate Crime that Jeremy Corbyn has become a victim of, beggars belief.
The pressure and subsequent potential Hate Crime against Jeremy Corbyn must be challenged in Courts and those persons who are employing Hate Crime to implant a prejudicial subset of a Hate Crime with their specific definition and examples under IHRA, must be brought to the Courts and held to account.