Antisemitism has been in the news rather a lot lately.
Diane Abbott has been accused of antisemitism for suggesting in a letter to the Observer that Jews have not suffered from racism to the same extent as black people because they are not so visibly distinctive. Currently she is suspended from the parliamentary Labour Party, pending an investigation.
And the Guardian has been accused of antisemitism for publishing a cartoon of Richard Sharp, the departing Chairman of the BBC, which exaggerated the Jewishness of his features in a manner reminiscent of Nazi propaganda.
‘Antisemitism’ means very different things to different people. Some have argued that Abbott’s letter was antisemitic because she appeared to suggest that there is a ‘hierarchy of racism’; others would say that her comments were not antisemitic because she said nothing directly to disparage Jewish people. Some have argued that the Guardian cartoon was antisemitic because it played into ‘antisemitic tropes’; others would say that cartoonists always exaggerate the features of the public figures they lampoon, it is their job.
There are endless arguments within Jewish organisations and in Jewish publications over the meaning of the term ‘antisemitism’. At one extreme are those who regard any condemnation of the State of Israel as ‘antisemitic’; at the other are those who argue that use of the term ‘antisemitism’ should be restricted to the verbal or physical abuse of Jewish people for being Jewish.
The Labour Party alone has four different Jewish groups which distinguish themselves by their competing definitions of antisemitism (Jewish Labour Movement, Jewish Voice for Labour, Labour Against Antisemitism and Socialists Against Antisemitism). Shades of the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front from Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
This lack of clarity over the definition of antisemitism has enabled people to exploit the term for political ends: what I have described in previous articles for the Daily Sceptic as the ‘weaponisation’ of antisemitism.
In January, I wrote about the smearing of Andrew Bridgen MP by Matt Hancock in the House of Commons as ‘antisemitic’ for having tweeted that the Covid vaccine programme was “the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust”. I described the smear as “patently ludicrous… part of a concerted campaign to ‘weaponise’ antisemitism, to use antisemitism as a cudgel with which to beat anyone who speaks out against the Covid regime.”
In February, I wrote about an attack by the Guardian on GB News presenter Neil Oliver for “indulging conspiracy theories… spreading ideas linked to antisemitism”. Oliver had referred in his programme to a “silent war” against the British people and to plans to impose a “one-world Government”, which supposedly echoed ‘antisemitic tropes’. I argued that these accusations were “so flimsy that they’re hardly worth rebutting“, and that they had been inspired by Mark Steyn’s recent departure from GB News: the Guardian sensed weakness and was looking to cause further trouble for a conservative broadcaster.
Now a similar line of attack has been used to persuade Fox News to sack its leading presenter, Tucker Carlson.
Many theories have been put forward by commentators to account for Carlson’s dismissal, such as his criticism of the conduct of the war in Ukraine, his revelation of what happened at the Capitol on January 6th 2021, and his discussion of the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the broadcast media.
Some or all of these likely played a part in persuading Fox News to sack Carlson.
But another explanation is to be found in the persistent campaign for Carlson’s dismissal conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
The ADL was established in 1913 in the aftermath of the lynching in Georgia of a young Jewish man called Leo Frank after he had been convicted of the murder of a local girl – widely considered to be a travesty of justice – and the state Governor had commuted his sentence from the death penalty to life imprisonment.
The ADL has campaigned tirelessly against antisemitism for more than a century. It is much better funded and more influential than comparable organisations in other countries (such as the Campaign Against Antisemitism here in the U.K.).
The ADL has often been accused of exaggerating the extent of antisemitism to persuade people to give it more money, but it used to keep focused on combating hostility to Jewish people (and to the State of Israel).
Then in 2015 the ADL appointed as its Director Jonathan Greenblatt, who had previously worked as Special Assistant to President Obama.
Greenblatt’s appointment was a controversial one: he has been accused in many quarters both of politicising the ADL in a pro-Democrat direction and of stretching the definition of ‘antisemitism’ to encompass the entire ‘progressive’ agenda. According to his detractors, anything that Greenblatt disapproves of, he condemns as ‘antisemitic’ – whether it actually has anything to do with antisemitism or not.
Greenblatt was never going to be a supporter of Tucker Carlson, who has been an outspoken critic of both the Democratic Party and the ‘progressive’ agenda. Greenblatt was particularly riled when Carlson started talking two years ago about the ‘Great Replacement Theory’, the notion that the Democratic administration is promoting the immigration of large numbers of people from developing countries because they are more likely to vote Democrat.
In April 2021 Greenblatt wrote to Suzanne Scott, the Chief Executive of Fox News, calling for her to sack Carlson, on the grounds that “the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ is a classic white supremacist trope that undergirds the modern white supremacist movement in America. … This is not legitimate political discourse. It is dangerous race-baiting, extreme rhetoric.”
Greenblatt also spoke to a meeting of the World Federation of Advertisers calling on its members to boycott Fox News on account of Carlson’s “promotion of the antisemitic replacement theory”.
In September 2021 Greenblatt renewed his call for Carlson to be fired, stating that “for Tucker Carlson to spread the toxic antisemitic and xenophobic ‘Great Replacement Theory’ is a repugnant and dangerous abuse of his platform.”
Carlson heard about this second attack live on air from his former colleague, Megyn Kelly, who asked him how he felt when “sure enough, the ADL comes after you”.
“The ADL?” Carlson replied. “Fuck them.” He continued:
The ADL was such a noble organisation that had a very specific goal, which was to fight antisemitism, that’s a virtuous goal. I think they were pretty successful over the years. Now it’s operated by a guy who’s just an apparatchik of the Democratic Party.
It’s very corrosive for someone to take the residual moral weight of an organisation that he inherited and use it for partisan ends.
The Great Replacement Theory is in fact not a theory, it’s something that the Democrats brag about constantly.
The problem Carlson has faced in talking about the Great Replacement Theory is that it has also been cited by people who have carried out antisemitic and other racist hate crimes. In May 2022 a white supremacist shot and killed 10 people in a supermarket in a black neighbourhood of Buffalo, New York. He cited the Great Replacement Theory as the reason for his attack, and claimed that “the Jews” were behind it.
The shooter never mentioned Carlson, and he expressed hatred for Fox News. But this did not stop the ADL from making the link. Greenblatt issued a statement that “the individual who allegedly carried out this attack was heavily influenced by white supremacist ideology, including the virulently antisemitic and racist ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory. … More must be done – now – to push back against the racist and antisemitic violence propounded by the far Right.”
On April 24th this year, as soon as Carlson’s departure from Fox News was announced, Greenblatt danced on his grave, posting on Twitter that:
It’s about time. For far too long, Tucker Carlson has used his primetime show to spew antisemitic, racist, xenophobic and anti-LBGTQ hate to millions. @ADL has long called for his firing for this and many other offenses, including spreading the Great Replacement Theory.
The criticism of Carlson in connection with the Great Replacement Theory is an example of what the Germans call ‘contact guilt’ (Kontaktschuld, similar to ‘guilt by association’). Carlson has talked about the Great Replacement Theory, and so have bad people who hate Jews. So Carlson is somehow associated with these bad people.
The Jewish Chronicle published an article celebrating Carlson’s departure from Fox News in which it criticised him for discussing the Great Replacement Theory, which it said had also been cited by people responsible for antisemitic violence, while adding a caveat that “Carlson has never been found to have directly advocated violence against Jews”.
Well, exactly. Carlson has never said anything antisemitic. That notion comes entirely from his critics.
The Guardian argued that Carlson was actually a “fascist” and that, although he had been “careful to avoid explicitly antisemitic statements”, his “antisemitism” was “clearly dog-whistled”.
The American Jewish magazine the Forward also accused Carlson of “promoting antisemitic dog whistles”, adding that Carlson’s refences to the Great Replacement Theory were “always just veiled enough to maintain plausible deniability against accusations of antisemitism”.
‘Dog-whistle antisemitism’ refers to the use of coded language that is apparently intended to be understandable to antisemites but not to anyone else. Just like ultrasonic dog whistles which are audible to dogs but not to people. Anyone can be accused of ‘dog-whistle antisemitism’, because it doesn’t require any actual evidence of antisemitism, and is therefore an accusation against which it is impossible to defend oneself.
We are now in a situation in which the definition of antisemitism has been widened so far as to be almost meaningless. As was pointed out by fellow GB News contributor Dominique Samuels after the Guardian’s attack on Neil Oliver, “if everything is antisemitic, then nothing is”. The real problem of antisemitic abuse and violence gets buried under a mountain of gobbledegook.
And because almost anything can be described as antisemitic, the accusation of antisemitism can be weaponised against any political opponent who contradicts the officially sanctioned narrative, even though he or she has said nothing about Jews at all.
As Oliver pointed out to James Delingpole, nobody complains when people on the other side of the argument, such as Klaus Schwab and Ursula von der Leyen, talk about one-world Government. They are not accused of being antisemitic, yet as soon as a sceptic mentions globalism or one-world Government, the accusations of antisemitism begin. “Just Kafkaesque nonsense,” said Oliver.
It could even be argued that Diane Abbott has suffered in a similar way. Far be it from me to defend Abbott, who by denying the Jewish experience of racism showed an apparent ignorance of the concerns of the very large population of ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews in her own constituency – the ones who dress out of 18th-century Lithuania – who are subjected to racist abuse on a daily basis.
But there is an argument to be made that the majority of Jews today do not suffer from racism in the same way as blacks because they do not stand out so conspicuously. Whether or not one agrees with this argument, it is not clearly not beyond the bounds of civilised debate – though Abbott made it very poorly in her letter to the Observer.
Why, one might wonder, was Abbott suddenly excommunicated from the parliamentary Labour Party following her letter, despite having apologised (again badly expressed)? Was she suspended for reasons of morality? Or because the present Labour leadership saw an opportunity to rid itself of one of the last remaining high-profile supporters of Jeremy Corbyn? To this extent, one could argue that antisemitism was weaponised against Abbott too.
None of which serves the interests of Jewish people, whose welfare should surely be the focus of all discussions about antisemitism. Baroness Anderson, who as Ruth Smeeth was subject to a good deal of antisemitic abuse when she was a Labour MP under Corbyn’s leadership, was interviewed on GB News about Abbott’s suspension. “I’m tired of my identity being used as a political football,” Anderson said. “Suddenly from 2016 onwards, the only bit of my identity that seemed relevant for certain people was the fact I also happened to be Jewish.” I can see her point.
Andrew Barr is the founder of Jews for Justice, which campaigns for free speech and civil liberties from a Jewish perspective. The first public Jews for Justice debate will be held in North London on the evening of Monday May 22nd. Email here for more information.
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“The Guardian’s report is worth reading in full”
Well – that makes a change
However, that was of course untrue!
Mhmm, I used to read almost nothing but the guardian before covid times … now I couldn’t bring myself to open this or any other article and I don’t see myself ever going back.
The Guardian has singularly ailed to live up to its name in any way shape or form, the good news is nobody but the bbc buys it now, it’s a worthless brand. The guardian is doomedIt died of covid19, part of the collateral damage of lockdown.
I have no doubt that, had the Guardian led the charge against lockdown, lives would have been saved, but the strong current of political correctness was too much for it to ignore. So they burned all their principles on an ill fated crusade against human rights. It’s strangely satisfying that a paper founded on support fot human rights should run aground when it abandoned its principles. Good riddance to bad rubbish, my only regret is that I was a loyal reader for 30 years. I even used to buy it at Munich Hauptbahnhof, when I lived there – more fool me, they abandoned me, though. They are too childish now.
The Groan went over to the dark side a while ago – when the Scott Trust was folded and the editorship changed. For a while, it wasn’t noticed except by a few who fell foul of its establishment biases and got blanked by its comment columns. Although in earlier times, for instance, it had been leaned on by the Israel lobby, it suddenly wouldn’t report its doings.
Thus the epithet ‘The House Journal of MI6’ – i.e – a safe channel for stuff coming out of government and the establishment.
Correct. I used to do that every day (even back in paper days), but I’m glad I never subscribed to it online.
“Understanding these drivers is important, because without this understanding you can’t implement any interventions.”
Why would they want to implement interventions? How about leaving it to individuals to make up their own minds and then respect that decision?
Come, come, if people did that then we would be back on the path to at least some hint at democracy!
Exactly – I don’t see myself and my attitudes as being a ‘problem’ they must ‘tackle’.
Unfortunately for us they see our attitudes and ourselves as problems!
Too true – but long may we remain a pain in their collective arse!
People are too ignorant for that policy, that is why we have to be governed.
Ja wohl!
Could you imagine the chaos if we let people decide for theselves whether to drive on the left or the right side of the road ? Or whether to pay tax or not. Or when they are sober enough to drive. Use you head, George! No, sometimes it is quite right for a government to make a law, we need that!
Why are you on this site?
It’s here because it’s on duty.
I’d love to know how much they’re getting paid.
“sometimes” – No one had argued for never. The discussion is specifically about coerced / forced medical experimentation. If you read back your comment, I think you’ll recognise it wasn’t making any relevant point.
These comparisons are completely missing the point. Laws need to be based on sound principles and practices, be evidence based, proportionate, logical, practicable and reasonable. They also need to be adjusted, refined, or repealed (removed) as experience of the outcomes of their implementation materialises. Nothing about the official government narrative meets any of these criteria.
The rule of law is important in a democracy, Fon, and it’s a shame you haven’t experienced one of those. But totalitarianism in which lies are a tool of government, the people have a duty to refuse to obey and to rebel. This is true in Communist China, which you admire.
Aren’t you the one who posted that emotional comment above about loss of human rights?
Are you sober enough to drive?
“Key reasons include concern about the speed of vaccine development, presuming Covid immunity because of previous infection and a lack of trust in the Government.”
Valid concerns and nothing whatsoever to allay them.
Another reason may be that many of them are intelligent and informed enough to ask questions, and not to buy things off door to door sellers etc. After all, “lack of trust in the Government” is a wise position to start with, especially now.
Maybe they have also seen some adverse reactions.
No mention of the 1047 people – that we know of – having died from all causes following the vaccine in the UK, according to the Yellow Card scheme. Amounting to 1 death per 42,500 doses of vaccine.
As can be seen from using the Oxford “COVID death risk” online calculator, for the majority of people under 50 the risk from the vaccine is higher than the risk of death from COVID.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/982474/Covid-19_mRNA_Pfizer_BioNTech_vaccine_analysis_print2.pdf
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/982453/COVID-19_AstraZenenca_Vaccine_Analysis_Print.pdf
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/982455/Covid-19_Moderna_vaccine_analysis_print.pdf
Little wonder that people in the Health Service who are more likely to be aware of the Yellow Card scheme are opposed to having the vaccine. Not hesitant. Opposed.
Super post.I’m under 50,just,NHS worker-Paramedic-,this is exactly the reason I haven’t taken up their offer.
I went from taking covid patients to hospital to taking people having adverse reactions to hospital sometime in Feb iirc.
I didn’t know it at the time,but that was when the MHRA algorithm as missing the bad news.
I’d lvoe to see the figures for people dying within 28 days of the vaccine.
Thank you for posting, Rigger. Love the last sentence.
I read in a BMJ letter from a pharmacist that a drop in platelets – probably usually transitory? – is a common effect of AZ, between one in 10 and one in 100.
The figures for the rna vaccines on this need to be urgently publicised. We know they do it too.
Those with existing low platelets, which is one in 10 of those with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia, a disease which is woefully under diagnosed in the UK, do they know that?
Those young women with anaemia, do they know that?
Informed consent, anyone?
If I’m reading those links correctly, there are over 1000 deaths reported, for around 30 million people vaccinated. That would be one death in 30,000.
According to Ofxord’s QCovid Covid death risk calculator, a healthy 49 year old has around the same chance of death from Covid today.
According to the statistics presented by JVT on the 7th April, chances of ‘severe harm’ for 50+ is less than 1 in 250,000 (<0.4 per 100,000):
https://dailysceptic.org/first-do-no-harm-means-not-vaccinating-young-people/
I wonder what methodology they used for that then.
Is it reasonable that that chances of ‘severe harm’ from the vaccine are 10x lower than the Yellow Card reported fatality rate? Possibly, but equally I don’t think the attribution of ‘covid deaths’ was done using such a high bar.
JVT’s slides also show that chances of severe harm for 30-39 year olds is 4x greater than for 60-69 year olds. So it’s not like the vaccination risk is decreasing as the vaccination is rolled out to lower age groups. It is increasing.
“Informed consent”?
I really hate that “vaccine hesitancy” phrase. A lot of those people will have, in the months they have probably been pressured to have the thing, firmly decided what they want to do, which is, take the “safe” option, operate under the “precautionary principle” and let their immune system look after them, uncontaminated by an experimental “novel” gene technology.
Many, probably most in the NHS, have had Covid. They don’t need the vaccine. They know that.
Vaccinating those who are already immune is one of the key betrayers of the Big FatLie for pharmaceutical profit which now rules us all.
Ban the word “hesitancy”.
Thank goodness some people have some sense and ability to assess risk. I’m pleasantly surprised the number’s that high considering what completely hysterical muppets most people are.
People trust the media. They trust the NHS. They trust experts presented by the media. Aside from petty corruption, such as expenses claims, they even, more or less, trust politicians.
When all these “independent” pillars of our society (government and “opposition” in unison) collaborate to deliver Project Fear, it’s no surprise that we become a nation of “hysterical muppets”.
A few of us haven’t been taken in. Maybe we were abnormally cynical, perhaps from bad experiences we’d happened to have had. I believe most of us need to accept we’ve just been lucky, as regards the psychological operation. In many cases, it’s not down to us being super smart.
It’s not ‘luck’ it is common sense, sadly lacking everywhere seemingly..
Actually, “common sense” is a tool of the flimflam. Propositions can become accepted by asserting they’re just “common sense”, similar to Gary Lineker asserting that face nappies were a “no brainer”.
I’m an ex nurse and have no faith or trust in the NHS having seen too many patients persuaded to accept treatment where the side effects or life changes are sugar coated by doctors and people are talked into having procedures which many wouldn’t have agreed to if they’d known the truth.
I was never duped by the Covid hysteria and had a fairly shrewd idea how this debacle was likely to pan out. No one would describe me as vaccine hesitant as I’m absolutely resolute I won’t be having the job jab. As someone with no health problems whatsoever I certainly don’t wish to engage in a game of russian roulette.
“Research by the University of Leicester” – yet another institution that has taken cash from Mr Vaccine.
https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants?q=University%20of%20Leicester
“As expected, ethnicity was also a major factor.” Sounds a bit patronizing!
Or racist.
No. It’s just description – of a fact that is well known. Some ethnic groups have, objectively and quantifiably, shown a more intelligent response to the vaccines than the white British.
Whatever it is, it’s deliberately devisive, like so much these days.
Yes, when I read about Ebola, and the locals doing their very best to avoid the white guys in Hazmat gear with their Western treatments, I sorrowfully admit that I felt a moment of patronising superiority.
I would like to sincerely apologise. Their instincts were far better than mine. I was being very dim.
I’d like now to read a careful investigation on the Ebola outbreaks, focusing on how much money was poured into that, and who profited and by how much. Looking back, massive psy ops may have been going on there too – it was the same crowd.
Ebola exists … but who profited from it, and how?
“Understanding these drivers is important, because without this understanding you can’t implement any interventions,” said Dr Manish Pareek, Associate Clinical Professor in Infectious Diseases at the University of Leicester who led the study.
And herein lies the problem. Instead of “implementing any interventions” , how about just accepting that some people have a different view, have done their own research and will not be coerced into this?
“how about just accepting that some people have a different view”
As considered public health strategy documents have recommended : leave it to individuals to assess their risk on the basis of good information rather than government and Big Pharma PR campaigns.
… and recognising that, since the end of WWII, it has been against medical ethics to coerce people into medical treatment. Basic stuff. Otherwise you’re with Mengele, not civilisation.
So 23% of healthcare workers have a brain after all !!!
Going to be some serious pressure and guilt applied to them that’s for sure. Good on em.
I didn’t read the article because…well, I didn’t think it was probably worth reading in full. So I don’t know if the study made any reference to first versus second injection, but a cursory glance at published stats suggests that the gov are going to face increasing difficulties persuading people to have a second dose of experimental “vaccine”, presumably because of adverse reactions people are having to the first, and increasing awareness of serious adverse reactions and deaths. In terms of reported deaths, I note that the growing numbers are not slowing down, contrary to the MHRA’s insistence that these deaths are predominantly among the elderly and those with underlying illnesses. Given that those groups were “vaccinated” some time ago, the growing numbers of post injection deaths suggests younger and healthier people are also dying.
There’s a possible explanation for why the government switched strategy to increase the rate of people receiving first shots, at the expense of fully “protecting” the supposed vulnerable group (which, originally, were the only ones for whom the experimental injections were intended). Get as many people as possible done once, before news of the adverse reactions builds and spreads.
We know our government, and the WHO, are keen to inject us all. What we don’t know (aside from exactly why) is the extent to which one shot each is sufficient for their purposes.
Anyone who has had no immediate ill (or significant) effect from his first injection is likely to think “in for a penny, in for a pound”, I suspect.
Are such groups, including also non health workers at other large work places where vaccines are encouraged able to get together to support each other and/or form a large group that represents all of them?
E.g. I imagine if the boss and/or human resources speaks to an individual and tries to persuade them to get the jab it would be easier for that individual if they could ask that another employee they nominate is present (that was common practice in my company that you could do that if you wanted for any uncomfortable discussions), or better still everyone insist the company have to speak to all 10, or 100 of them at once, or a nominated committee to ensure all the points are properly raised, the meeting minuted and pressure put on the employer etc to rethink.
I’m not sure where unions are on all this, I’m seeing mixed messages, so perhaps not much help, but it would be nice if there was some national group set up with suitable knowledge they could all contact who could help them in discussions with their employers and explain to them why attitudes like “Understanding these drivers is important, because without this understanding you can’t implement any interventions,” or “We urgently need strategies to build trust and dispel myths….” are missing the point.
Group action would certainly help, but it brings the risk that your “representatives” concede on your behalf.
If, and when, it comes down to it, you need to stand up for yourself. If your boss demanded you played Russian Roulette, to keep your job, you’d surely stand quite firm.
Who knows how long a job is going to last, anyway, nowadays? If we ever return to sanity, you should be entitled to an unfair dismissal payout, from your firm – if it still exists by then!
Top advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkQXnQ0plDA
“brings the risk that your “representatives” concede on your behalf”, yes, I agree, very good point. I’m imagining if I was still at work and put in this situation I’d want for at least several of us to be present at once and not feel I’m the only one. I think I’m seeing it not as a negotiation, more a communication and putting the pressure back on them to back off and leave us alone.
And to counter the issue that a survey like this is perhaps in effect controlling the message that gets back and not letting those surveyed control that message.
And health care workers are more qualified to comment on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. They know a thing or two about a thing or two.
Either that or my nephew is a monkey.
No surprise. The ONS ‘hesitancy survey’ showed that they expect younger groups to be more likely to say ‘No’, without taking into account the competence & intelligence of them in any specific group.
Jab enthusiasts are white supremacists by their own woke standards.
Take the white mans vaxx savages
What are you talking about? The vast majority of those who’ve been coerced into getting this jab have been white.
‘…or assuming immunity to Covid because of previous infection were some of the key reasons cited.’
That seems a perfectly reasonable assumption to make.
Medics and nurses and care workers are the witnesses to the huge amount of adverse events and deaths post vaccine. That is why they are staying away from this poison. Read cdc VAERS. The numbers are going up so quickly in just a few short months. Same in the UK. Funny MSM refuses to write anything about this well kept secret.
Excellent point!