[ Asa Winstanleys new book shows how the Israel lobby weaponized
antisemitism to create a new McCarthyism to bring down Jeremy Corbyn
and those building a genuine socialist Labour Party.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

HOW JEREMY CORBYN WAS TOPPLED BY THE ISRAEL LOBBY  
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Michael Steven Smith
July 12, 2023
Mondoweiss
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_ Asa Winstanley's new book shows how the Israel lobby weaponized
antisemitism to create a new McCarthyism to bring down Jeremy Corbyn
and those building a genuine socialist Labour Party. _

Jeremy Corbyn speaking at an impromptu rally alongside the Robin Hood
statue at Nottingham Castle; December 4, 2019., Photo: Wikimedia

 

Asa Winstanley is a British investigative journalist and author who
lives in London. He writes primarily about Palestine and the Israel
lobby for _The Electronic Intifada_.  Winstanley has written a
political thriller and real page-turner titled _Weaponizing
Antisemitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn
[[link removed]]_. It is
an important book.  

 

Weaponizing Antisemitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy
Corbyn [[link removed]]
by Asa Winstanley
OR Books, NY/London; 310 pages
May 30, 2023
Paperback:  $18.00;  E-book:  $10.00;  Print + E-book:  $22.00
Paperback ISBN 978-1-68219-381-5 • E-book ISBN 978-1-68219-382-2

 

OR Books
 

It has a lesson for those of us in the Palestinian solidarity movement
working for social justice in the U.S. The Israel lobby lied,
cynically manufacturing a fake crisis of antisemitism in the Labour
Party where it didn’t exist, using fear to succeed. The lobby cannot
be placated. They need to be called out and confronted. That is the
main lesson of the book.

Corbyn got his start in the trade union movement. He spoke out against
racism and fascism and for immigrant rights. He opposed privatization
cuts and austerity. Asa Winstanley writes that “probably more than
anything else, Corbyn was known among activists for his work in the
Palestine Solidarity movement.”

Over the years, socialist Corbyn became popular, especially among
hundreds of thousands of young people who had recently joined the
Labour Party.

The possibility of Corbyn being elected terrified the British right
and the British elite, who deeply distrust democracy. There is a
parallel here with the fate of Bernie Sanders, who was opposed by the
entire Democratic party establishment.

The lobby’s campaign against Corbyn got help from the Israeli
government, British intelligence, and the entire British media,
including the liberal _Guardian_ newspaper, the BBC, the right wing
of the Labour Party, and even the CIA.

Corbyn and the socialists in the Labour Party in England were crushed
by the massive campaign. Labeling Corbyn as an antisemite was a
preposterous charge, but it has stuck.

The Labour Party now has reverted to the way it was when Tony Blair, a
supporter of austerity and America’s war in Iraq, was the head of
what was called “New Labour.” 

Instead of denouncing the campaign for what it was, Winstanley
criticizes Corbyn, whom he likes, for making the mistake of placating
the lobby. As his colleague, Ali Abunimah, at the _Electronic
Intifada_ remarked: “they won’t take yes for an answer.”

The history of Zionism, since it began over 100 years ago, has been to
seek out and ally with a powerful imperial power in order to get help
in colonizing Palestine. In 1932, with Hitler’s Nazi party on the
rise in Germany, (they would get elected the next year) the Zionists
worked with Hitler’s Nazis to facilitate the removal of Jews from
Germany to Palestine. When Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London,
pointed this out, stating this historical fact to a reporter, he was
ridiculed, and no one in the media made any effort to check on the
accuracy of his claim.

The lobby picked off prominent figures in the Labour Party, including
Livingstone, and Ken Loach, the great British filmmaker. Finally, they
got Corbyn, kicking him out of Labour’s parliamentary party. He is
still a member of parliament.

When Richard Nixon was interviewed late in life, a reporter asked him
what was his secret for political success. He replied immediately:
“it was fear. Fear. And they don’t teach you that in the Boy
Scouts.” Fear played a major role in bringing down Corbyn and his
left supporters, who were building a genuine socialist Labour Party.

The entire corporate media in England lined up against Corbyn and what
he represented in the Labour Party. It was only the independent media
that played an important role in exposing the campaign.

Winstanley could not find a publisher in England for his book. He has
said that it speaks volumes about the success of the weaponization of
antisemitism that he couldn’t find a British publisher even after
two years of looking. OR Books, based mostly in the United States and
run by Colin Robinson, a transplanted British socialist, published it
and gave it its appropriate title. The book can be ordered from them
at orbooks.com [[link removed]].

Finally, in _Weaponizing Antisemitism_, Winstanley also writes about
McCarthyism here in the United States. He discusses Arthur Miller’s
great play, _The Crucible_, about the witchhunt in colonial America
that was really about Joe McCarthy, who went after socialists and
communists in America in the 50s. We see this anti-communism is still
alive and well and already is a central focus of Trump’s campaign,
with Trump last week proposing that socialists and communists in
America be deported.

The most powerful, well-heeled part of the American pro-Israel lobby
is AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. They helped
Donald Trump, got support from 106 insurrection Republicans, and spent
millions to defeat progressives, targeting and trying to intimidate
Black and brown women candidates across the country, threatening to
spend against them if they even slightly criticized Israel’s
far-right apartheid policies. Their MO? Conflating criticism of the
Israeli apartheid state with antisemitism.

As commentator Felix Biederman pointed out when endorsing
Winstantely’s invaluable book, “Everyone should read
‘Weaponizing Antisemitism’.  The same cynical methods Winstanley
lays out here will be used against any groundswell that questions the
politics of empire.”

And thus, the same blueprint that Winstanley maps out in _Weaponizing
Antisemitism_ is now being used here in the United States.

_[MICHAEL STEVEN SMITH
[[link removed]] is an attorney, a
former board member at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the
cohost of the nationally broadcast radio show Law and Disorder. He is
the co-author, with Michael Ratner of Who Killed Che?]_

_Thanks to the author for sending this to Portside._
 

* Jeremy Corbyn
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* British Labour Party
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* Labour Party
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* Israel Lobby
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* Israel
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* McCarthyism
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* UK
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* England
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* zionism
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* anti-Semitism
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