Relocation
The New Statesman has disappointing news:
Naz Shah resigns from Labour frontbench
The Bradford West MP has stepped down following the emergence of remarks made prior to her election as an MP.
Damn. I was so happy when she trounced Galloway.
Shah has resigned as parliamentary private secretary to John McDonnell, after the political website Guido Fawkes revealed that, prior to becoming an MP, she argued that Israelis should be relocated to the United States.
Or Madagascar or Poland? That’s not fair, but…Damn, this is disappointing.
Shah released the following statement on Monday afternoon: “I deeply regret the hurt I have caused by comments made on social media before I was elected as an MP. I made these posts at the height of the Gaza conflict in 2014, when emotions were running high around the Middle East conflict. But that is no excuse for the offence I have given, for which I unreservedly apologise.
“In recognition of that offence I have stepped down from my role as PPS to the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. I will be seeking to expand my existing engagement and dialogue with Jewish community organisations, and will be stepping up my efforts to combat all forms of racism, including anti-semitism.”
The graphic she posted claimed, among other things, that the Middle East will “again be peaceful” after all those pesky Israelis are shipped elsewhere. Because clearly there are no other sources of conflict in the region.
Her politics don’t seem much different from Galloway’s, except that he wouldn’t have apologized.
Particularly with that line about the Middle East being all peaceful, I thought the whole thing was satirical and mildly funny. Madagascar or Poland would have been less humorous though.
I’m really sorry about this as she put up a great fight against that pig, Galloway.
However her views aren’t surprising. A lot of that about in the Labour party.
Stealing a comment from an FB friend:-
“I’m not sure about demanding that Corbyn act against Naz Shah. Corbyn agrees with Shah on “Zionism”. He supports Hamas and Hezbollah politically, he says they are dedicated to peace and justice in the Middle East. He supports BDS. He acted as a high profile figurehead for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a boycotting organisation which tolerates antisemitism within its ranks, and Stop the War, a campaign which supports wars against Britain, America and Israel. Corbyn jumped to the defence of Raed Salah, the blood libeler and Steven Sizer the C of E conspiracist. Corbyn sometimes says he’s for 2 states, but he also says he’s for the “right of return” of all the descendants of the Palestinian who left, fled or were driven out in ’48. Corbyn repeats the charge that those who raise the issue of antisemitism in the Labour Party are doing so in bad faith in order to silence criticism of Israel or to smear socialism, not because they really believe there is a problem of antisemitism. Corbyn hosted a show for the Iranian propaganda TV station and he recommended Putin’s propaganda TV station Russia Today.
The problem of antisemitism in the Labour Party is a widespread problem of ways of thinking about Israel and the Jews who are held to support it and it finds its figurehead in Jeremy Corbyn.
The problem isn’t the little guys who say things which are easily recognizable as antisemitic, they are symptoms. The problem is the leadership and the broad swathe of members who wanted that leadership. ”
At least Shah – who I think is redeemable – apologised straight out.
Disappointing, but not entirely surprising. I know it personally. The far right are no longer the main source of rabid antisemitism, and haven’t been for many years. These days it’s (certain sections of) the left and, very sad to say, Muslims. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/trevor-phillips-muslims_uk_570b5d63e4b0ae22c1dff5aa
Comparisons to Nazis (when not denying the Holocaust altogether!) — Shah apparently made a couple of Hitler references herself — and all sorts of lunatic theories about the Jews. Shah is an intelligent woman, so that’s disappointing, but she was in a nasty political campaign against Galloway and was courting the Pakistani vote. I hope she bounces back and instead of pandering to that community, uses her talents to educate it. (But isn’t it deeply ironic that now it’s the Left that’s courting a tribal, religious vote?!)
Growing up in a family with links to that region, I absorbed some attitudes with my milk. It took me until my mid-teens to discard them along with my hijab. Whatever criticism one can make about Israel (like all modern societies, plenty, with the corrosive influence of rabbis and the Haredim at the head of the list), it is by far the most democratic, egalitarian, socially and culturally progressive country for thousands of kilometres around (even, in many cases, up to the shores of the Atlantic and the North Sea), Lebanon, where my mother still has family, being a very distant second in the Middle East.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-is-incapable-of-tackling-labours-anti-semitism-problem
‘Moderate Islam’ unveiled….AGAIN.
and all sorts of lunatic theories about the Jews. Shah is an intelligent woman, so that’s disappointing, but she was in a nasty political campaign against Galloway and was courting the Pakistani vote
One hopes there are other ways to court the Pakistani vote that don’t involve anti-Semitism.
Criticizing the apartheid state is one thing but the (inaccurate) Nazi comparison is going too far.
The linking of Israel and Nazi Germany, as a Jewish colleague explained to me, is deliberate. The “crimes” that Israel is accused of committing are never compared to those of any Western country, let alone Muslim states like Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Iran. Or, to go back a bit, the USSR or Maoist China or even the Khmer Rouge. (They aren’t within a lightyear of being comparable, but if hyperbolic exaggeration is needed why wouldn’t those analogies suffice?) Nor are they ever compared to what the Turks did to the Armenians or the Hutus to the Tutsis in Rwanda, or, Allah forbid, the Janjaweed Arabs to the Darfuris in Sudan. And, of course, what the Israelis are doing is never merely “unfair” or “unjust”; it’s always Naziism and the Holocaust. What can be more contemptible – yet clever – than to rub the salt of their history into the wounds of a people decimated by the greatest single crime in modern history, arguably in the entire history of “civilized” man? And this inversion serves another, even more despicable purpose as well. If the Jews are now committing “genocide”, it, at once, lessens – erases? – European guilt for committing genocide against the Jews and excuses the virulent antisemitism that has engulfed Muslim lands and now seems to have spread back into Europe. What could be neater?
And what could be more savoury than to imply that Israel has inherited Naziism or the associated antisemitism of that era? There is a whole school of (largely quack) pop-psychology to back it up… you know: the child who is abused grows up to be an abuser. It can work in several ways. 1) We’re sorry we abused the Jews back then (when? just in the 20th century or over 20 centuries of persecution?), but now they – the (Jewish) Israelis – are the abusers. Or… 2) We abused the Jews back then, so we have an obligation (announced in very solemn tones) to ensure that they don’t become abusers themselves. Or… 3) We may have abused the Jews back then but our guilt is absolved (well, at least mitigated) by the fact that they are now the abusers.
What could be neater!.