BBC Calls On Corbyn to Denounce Jews!

The BBC, which has been at the forefront of the Tory media campaign against Jeremy Corbyn itself today called on Corbyn to denounce Jews!!!!

In an interview with a Labour spokesperson, that ranged from Brexit to the resignation of Christine Shawcroft, the BBC's Assistant Political Editor, Norman Smith asked, "shouldn't Jeremy Corbyn denounce those who organised the counter-demonstration in Parliament Square on Monday?"

But, the organisers of that counter-demonstration were Jews, from the Jewish Voice for Labour!

So, in demanding that Corbyn condemn Jews is Norman Smith and the BBC being openly anti-Semitic?  I have no reason to believe so.  But, is Smith and the BBC being implicitly anti-Semitic?  Is it the case that Smith and the BBC only see some Jews, but are blind to the existence and concerns of other Jews.  In other words, do they have no trouble in seeing Jews who happen to fill their own view of what Jews should be like, and who support their own world view, and its critical attitude to Corbyn, but are blind to the existence of that large mass of Jews, who do not conform to that view, who constitute now possibly a larger proportion of Jewish Labour activists than does those who oppose Corbyn.

In that case, that would mean that the BBC is guilty of being implicitly anti-Semitic by subordinating the interests of Jews to their own short-term political ambitions of undermining and criticising Corbyn.  It would mean simply using Jews as pawns in a political game, of being mere cannon fodder to be thrown on to the political battlefield as a means of attacking Corbyn.  And, in fact, in the last week the BBC has been one of the main purveyors of anti-Semitic images.  Jeremy Corbyn has been criticised for the fact that six years ago, he viewed an image briefly on a two-inch mobile phone screen.  If Corbyn is anything like me, he has difficulty seeing anything properly on a mobile phone, which is why I don't bother with them.  Corbyn is also busier than me, so the fact that he made, what now turns out to have been a careless comment, which he thought was in defence of free speech, but turned out to be a defence of an offensive anti-Semitic mural, I can well understand, as can probably most of us of a similar age.  

The question here is, this was six years ago, and no one would even have been aware of this image had someone out to get Corbyn, not trawled through his social media comments for the last decade or so, trying to find something they could use against him, no matter how tenuous.  But, when the BBC and other sections of the Tory media have presented this story, rather than it being presented on a 2 inch mobile phone screen, it is now plastered across newspaper front pages, and across 50 inch TV screens beamed directly into people's living rooms.

And, purveyed in this panoramic wide screen vision, they then dishonestly ask, why can't you immediately see that this image is anti-Semitic?  But, this is an image that no one would even have been aware of, and indeed no one has been aware of for the last six years!!!  The people responsible for it being purveyed, and disseminated, in wide screen, technicolour, hour after hour, day after day for the last week, on TV screens, beamed into everyone's homes, are the Tory media - of which the Biased Broadcasting Company is one of the worst offenders.  And, in fact, typical of spineless Tory media, and typical of their hatred of Corbyn, their repeated use of this image day after day, stands in stark contrast to their failure several years ago, to display the Danish cartoons, that provoked hostility from Muslims.

On the BBC's Daily Politics on Wednesday, Andrew Neil, said sheepishly that they had considered whether they should show the mural, because of its anti-Semitic nature, but had decided to do so, in order that viewers should know exactly what was being discussed.  Well, given that the image had been displayed every hour, every day for the last week, it was a bit late to be making that consideration, but the fact that it has been so widely dispersed by the BBC and other Tory media over the last week, means that its unlikely that viewers of the Daily Politics were not already well acquainted with the image, and so his justification for showing it yet again, in full cinemascope hardly seems to be the real reason for them doing so.

The real anti-Semitism here is not one that can be laid at Corbyn's door, but lies at the door of those who spent six years trying to uncover something in Corbyn's history that could be thrown at him, and who found that tenuous as it was, this was the best they could come up with.  That is the real anti-Semitism, because it subordinates the interests of Jews to their own short-term, sectarian interest in attacking Corbyn, by whatever means they can.  In the process, it demonstrates the real anti-Semitism, because it means that an image that few people would even have been aware of six years ago, and even fewer aware of in the six years that have passed since then, has been spread far and wide by the Tory media.

Those that took the time to dig through the last decade of Corbyn's social media postings etc., have been able to do that, because they clearly have the resources to do so, which again poses the question of who is really behind this campaign to expose "the real Jeremy Corbyn", as with the Harris Media/Cambridge Analytica campaign in Kenya against Raila Odinga.  If we were to look over a similar period at the social media activity of various members of the Tory Party, I am sure that we would find a wealth of material that could be used against them.  But, few socialists bother to be a part of Tory and other right-wing social media forums, where they might become aware of such comments.  By contrast, its not just Tories and the far right seeking to undermine Corbyn, it is also the right of the Labour Party.

In part, Corbyn and the party leadership have invited the current situation, because they have continually back-pedalled in the face of attacks by the Tories, and the right-wing of the party, rather than taking them on.  The right are seeking to cow Corbyn, and the vast majority of the party membership, to dissuade them from deselecting the right-wing Councillors and MP's, who now so distinctly fail to reflect the party and its voters in the country.  Those self-serving MP's and Councillors would clearly prefer to see Labour do badly in the upcoming elections, as a means of undermining Corbyn than see Labour do well, and Corbyn's position be further consolidated.  They have used the same tactics in every year since Corbyn was elected Leader.  The Labour right are being facilitated by the Tories and the Tory media in that campaign.  Its time for Corbyn and the party leadership themselves to say EnoughisEnough, and now to begin to deselect all of these self-serving politicians, who put their own cushy jobs above the interest of the Party and of the  working-class whose interests it was set up to serve.  Its time for Corbyn and the leadership to put an end to the witchhunt of party members, and to begin to deal with the real culprits of bringing the party into disrepute.