One of the most striking features of Corbynist social media is an obsession with denying antisemitism. One might think that the Corbynist rump would therefore eschew firing accusations of antisemitism at anyone, but the opposite is the case. With surprising regularity, they accuse Jews and our allies of antisemitism. Keir Starmer, they assert, conflates Israel and Jews. JK Rowling creates goblins who are bankers. Boris Johnson writes a book which allegedly (I haven’t read it) uses lazy stereotypes.

Here in the UK and now in 2020, not a day goes by on social media without someone claiming that a person the speaker dislikes or distrusts is in the pay of Israel. Left-wing social media (the far right wing obviously have their own specialités de la maison), are usually careful to say Zionsts rather than Jews. They seem to think that as long as they use the word Zionist, their comments are untainted by antisemitism and if we find anything amiss, we are ‘conflating’ Israel with Jews. As I’ve documented many times, they offer tropes as follows:

Power: media influence, infiltration of political parties, domestic and abroad. Payrolling of Western institutions, political and cultural (overlaps with wealth trope).

Cruelty: Israeli-Palestinian conflict; blood libel, organ trafficking

Treachery: Acting against interests of domicile.

Mendacity: Telling lies about Jeremy Corbyn and anyone on the left accused of antisemitism. Subheadings, the Panorama documentary, Jewish journalists (overlaps with control of MSM), propaganda aka hasbara

Fake identity: Khazar theory, not Semites, colonialism, True Torah Jews are anti-Zionist.

Racism: Israel as Jewish nation, white supremacism, apartheid, treatment of people of colour who are Israeli citizens

Arrogance having the word ‘antisemitism’ as a sign of privilege over BAME people. The word ‘chosen’

Corruption Tax evasion, venial business practices, predatory behaviours, eg Epstein, Weinstein.

The particular aspect of antisemitism which has been on my mind for a few days falls under the heading of mendacity, not the lies told about us but the trope that we lie and the lies they say we tell.

On Corbynist forums on Facebook, the word antisemitism is usually found adjacent to the words ‘smear’, ‘lie’ or ‘false’.

What kind of people, the online Corbynists ask, are these ‘Zionists’ who lied about a saintly, even godlike man such as Corbyn?

Evil people, evidently: ‘We know they are liars, because they lied about antisemitism in the Labour Party. Nothing we say is antisemitic as it is actually about the Israel Lobby and it is antisemitic in itself to infer that it is about Jews.’

 I italicised those words because they appear so regularly, returning like a boomerang in reply to any challenge of the above mentioned tropes.

To those who were offended by the Mear One Mural, Corbyn’s defenders said, ‘Of course those old men with big noses don’t look Jewish. It is antisemitic in itself to make the connection.’

Following Keir Starmer’s sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey from the Shadow Cabinet, the view from the Corbynist side of the bridge is that Starmer is weak, giving in to the ‘Israel lobby’; that he is paid by Israel, a puppet of the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Labour Movement and the comrades sometimes remark that he has a Jewish wife, adding the exculpatory ‘Just saying’. Recently, someone posted ‘Starmer has an Israeli wife,’ perhaps thinking that substituting Israeli for Jewish would make the sentiment anti Zionist rather than antisemitic. It also made it false, as Lady Starmer is not Israeli.

On 29 June, the editor of the online Corbynist paper Skwawkbox lodged a formal complaint of antisemitism against Keir Starmer, for conflating Jewish people with actions of the Israeli government in breach of the IHRA code. This reminded me that, after Labour accepted the full IHRA conditions, which Corbyn had initially resisted, left wing social media positively teemed with accusations against Margaret Hodge, Tom Watson (who was supportive in the fight against antisemitism) and Stephen Pollard (editor of the Jewish Chronicle) , saying that antisemitically they conflated Jews with Israel. The IHRA conditions had been accepted, but when one door closes, another opens: they could use it – they thought – to punish Jews and our allies.

The conversation can go like this.

A: Zionists run all the political parties in the UK.

B: That’s antisemitic.

A: No it isn’t. It’s criticism of Israel which you’re conflating with Jews, which is antisemitic in itself.

Someone who says that the Rothschilds lost Labour the election or that Israelis did 9/11 is likely to answer, if challenged,  that this is criticism of Israel, and if we can see anything wrong with it, we must be an ‘Israeli shill’. A notorious example of myopia was the case of Thomas Gardiner, Labour’s head of Complaints under Mr Corbyn, who looked at a cartoon of a tentacled alien, marked with a star of David, smothering the Statue of Liberty, and deemed it acceptable criticism of Israel.

Corbynists on social media imply over and over again that to recognize the tropes is antisemitic in itself. It must mean we, not they, associate Jews with money bags and big noses. They, who post this sort of Stürmerei, are innocent of antisemitism they say, because it didn’t occur to them that the caricatures have anything to do with Jews and there must be something wrong with us, if we make the connection. They may admit that the image caricatured Zionists but, they say, many Zionists are not Jewish and many Jews are not Zionist. So honi soit qui mal y pense, yah boo, sucks.

Today a gentleman on Twitter called me a Zionist pig, among other things. If you oppose antisemitism on social media, you will be sent images of Netanyahu as, for example, a blood soaked puppeteer. Why do they assume we have a favourable view of Mr Netanyahu? The answer is easy. In their opinion, we would not be opposing antisemitism if it wasn’t for our love of Bibi – or the remuneration which allegedly he makes available to all of us. Wouldn’t we oppose antisemitism because it’s racism? No, we lie about it, because it isn’t racism if it’s on the so-called left and it doesn’t exist.

Thus, by complaining about the use of a Latuff cartoon, one might qualify to be sued by The Skwawkbox or the Canary for objecting to it and thereby conflating Jews with Israel.

I have been called a racist for making unfair generalizations about Corbynists, specifically, logging and displaying antisemitic comments from Corbynist groups on Facebook. I was generalizing and implying that all Corbynists hold such views, said Mr L, who, by chance, held precisely such views.

I sometimes think there are people who post about Israel all day long in ever more extreme and irrational terms (calling Israelis subhuman for example), in the hope that someone will call them an antisemite and then they can reply ‘Zionist fanatic’. Their crazed posts concerning the Labour MP for Barking are, they insist, about Israeli interference in UK politics. But Margaret Hodge isn’t Israeli. I don’t know whether she’s much of a Zionst. Her maiden name, they point out, was Oppenheimer and that’s a paid Israeli shill sort of name, if ever there was one.

What David Hirsh called the Livingstone Formulation is now an axiom among the Corbynist rump: if you complain about antisemitism, you must be lying and up to no good.

Since Black Lives Matter has been at the forefront of global consciousness, we are more frequently called white supremacists.  Some of us display BLM hashtags in our bios, but nevertheless we are said to be white supremacists because we are apologists for what they call apartheid Israel.  If it we object to a cartoon of a hand, a star of David on the cuff, dropping coins into a money box labelled Westminster, we are apartheid apologists.

Thus there is nothing opponents of antisemitism can say which isn’t turned around and mirrored by those who deny such a thing exists among the disappointed but not yet despairing Corbynistas.

They profess standard values.

They are against cults, specifically, the cult of Keir Starmer. What made them even dream this up, if not that they heard the expression ‘Corbyn cult’ many, many times, absorbed it and produce it now as a projectile attack on those intending to vote Labour (which, since Sir Keir became leader, is inexcusable in the eyes of many Corbynists)?

They are loyal to the leadership but only if it’s Corbyn. Starmer was disloyal to Corbyn, worse, is said to be a Zionist, so is not worthy of loyalty and should be punished for treachery.

They are for free speech and abhor the witchhunt perpetrated against the left by Zionists, Blairites and Tories who accuse them falsely.

Witch hunters are those who call anti-Zionists ‘antisemites’ and are the particular enemies of those expelled or suspended from Labour, who see themselves as victims. If you argue against the prevailing Corbynist geist on social media, you are a witch hunter. Witch hunters should be neither seen nor heard. As they perceive it, we are always the hunters and they are always the hunted.

I am conscious that the term ‘Corbynist’ is no longer quite right. It’s a misnomer, calling people Corbynists, when Corbynism is not an ideology or a set of beliefs. It is rather more a confederation of loosely associated followers, Trotskyists, Stalinists, the underprivileged, the academic, far right antisemites, far left antisemites, Jewish anti-Zionists, Islamists, Christian human rights workers, the sentimental, the revolutionary. the opportunistic and the gullible. These are just some of the groups who have nailed their mast to the cause of Jeremy Corbyn, four months gone from the Labour leadership but marching on as tirelessly as in the gif which depicts him in his Newsnight hat, striding jauntily towards the camera. The movement which flourished under his aegis is still vigorous and they have added to their list of enemies – the Zionists, Blairites, Tories and neoliberals, LibDems and Centrists – they have added to these the name of Keir Starmer who seems set to rival Blair as their most hated Labour leader.

It would be easier for us opponents of antisemitism here in the UK if we weren’t always being challenged about Israel. The planned annexation of a part of the West Bank is going to hit us in the diaspora, as they charge us British Jews with land theft and, as always, murder. But of course, their purpose isn’t to make it easy for us. Making it hard for us has been finessed by that part of the Labour left which is now politically homeless, just as centrists were homeless when Corbyn was the leader. One can understand their point of view: if they don’t make it about Israel, how are they going to brush us off as hasbara, remunerated out of an infinite supply of shekels from the Bank Leumi?

The screen shots below are all from the last two or three days on Facebook.

For anyone accused of antisemitism, the standard reply is, ‘I will not cease to stand up for the oppressed Palestinian people, even if I am persecuted for it by Zionists making false accusations.’

This fits almost any charge of antisemitism and permits any trope, well-worn or contemporary. I just happen to have seen this, which I consider projection in action.

The charge from the Corbynist left against Keir Starmer, Margaret Hodge, Wes Streeting, Ed Miliband, Stella Creasy and Nia Griffiths is that, by opposing Labour antisemitism, they conflate Israel with the Jewish people. Reason sleeps.