The British Left’s ‘Jewish Problem’ [View all]

[cali]

— It has, admitted Sadiq Khan, the Labour Party’s candidate in the election this week for London mayor, become “more difficult for Londoners of Jewish faith to feel that the Labour Party is a place for them.”

In recent days, the Labour Party has been embroiled in a furious dispute over the attitudes of some members toward Jews. Two leading figures, Naseem Shah, a member of Parliament for a Bradford constituency, and Ken Livingstone, a former London mayor and a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee, were suspended from the party for what were condemned as anti-Semitic remarks. Ms. Shah had suggested in a social media post that Israel be “relocated” to the United States, while Mr. Livingstone had tried to defend her by claiming that Adolf Hitler had been a Zionist.

It is not the first such uproar: In February, the party was forced to open an investigation into the Oxford University Labour Club, and in March to suspend some councilors and activists accused of anti-Semitism. All this has led a number of prominent Jews — including the novelist Howard Jacobson, the former senior BBC executive Danny Cohen and The Financial Times’s managing editor, Robert Shrimsley — to withdraw support from Labour.

<snip>

Identity politics has made it easier to hold all Jews responsible for the actions of the State of Israel and to go after Jews simply for being Jews. As the distinction between criticizing ideas and fingering a group has eroded, there has been a slippage from anti-Zionist activism into outright anti-Semitism. Many who support the Palestinians now seem genuinely unable to distinguish between criticizing the policies of the Israeli government and sowing hatred against a people.

<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/opinion/the-british-lefts-jewish-problem.html?_r=0