George Galloway decries ‘weaponization’ of anti-Semitism against Labor
Controversial British politician once declared his Parliamentary district ‘an Israel-free zone’
A former British lawmaker known for his heated anti-Israel rhetoric has accused critics of the country’s left-wing Labor party of “weaponizing” anti-Semitism for political ends.
In a video tweeted out by Kremlin-funded network Russia Today, George Galloway, who had previously represented Glasgow Kelvin in Parliament, said that while combating anti-Semitism is important, “the weaponization of anti-Semitism against people not in the least guilty of it is equally a serious matter.”
Galloway has himself come under fire for alleged anti-Semitism. Last month, he was fired from a radio job after celebrating the loss of a local football team widely seen as having Jewish ties, tweeting “no Israel flags on the cup.” In 2014 he made waves among British Jews when he declared his district “an Israel-free zone.”
Galloway said that focusing on the widespread allegations of institutional anti-Semitism in the Labor party under leader Jeremy Corbyn is dangerous because “then the real anti-Semites can go about their evil, potentially fatal business unnoticed.”
Time to say ‘this far & no further’ to using anti-Semitism as a weapon – @GeorgeGalloway pic.twitter.com/NaVz58FRMd
— RT (@RT_com) July 2, 2019
“So the boy who cried wolf is a useful parable and we are so far down the rabbit hole now of the weaponization of anti-Semitism as a political issue that it has become not just unjust, not just immoral but positively dangerous and dangerous to Jewish people themselves.”
Galloway also defended Chris Williamson, an MP who was recently suspended from Labor for asserting that the party was “too apologetic” about anti-Semitism, stating that the heated criticism against him was “dangerous, reckless [and] irresponsible.”
Galloway further stated that many of those accused of anti-Semitism could not be considered racist against Jews because they listen to Bob Dylan records and read books by Professor Normal Finkelstein, a controversial American Jewish academic who is shunned by much of the organized Jewish community due to his assertion that Jews profit from a “Holocaust industry.”
He also quoted former Israeli minister Shulamit Aloni, who once claimed that supporters of Israel cynically abuse the issue of anti-Semitism to distract from criticism of the Jewish state.
“The smearing of supporters of Palestinian rights, the smearing of opponents of Israeli policies and practices as anti-Semitism is a weapon of war, it’s a mechanized, industrialized weapon of war and it’s time to say, ‘This far and no further,'” he said.
The video generated outrage in Israeli and Jewish quarters. Izabella Tabarovsky, an expert on Soviet Jewry and managing editor of the Kennan Institute’s Russia File and Focus Ukraine blogs, noted that Russia, which controls RT, has a history of itself instrumentalizing the issue of anti-Semitism for political ends.
The “people who are in power in Russia today, including FSB, the current iteration of KGB, understand antisemitism very well & know exactly how to manipulate it for their purposes. They have decades of institutional experience at their fingertips,” she tweeted. “So a question that comes up for me re this video is what exactly the connection between Galloway and Russia’s propaganda apparatus is. And the fact that RT is promoting it raises the question of what exactly Russia’s game is with respect to current AS crisis in the West.”
Here’s what’s fascinating about this video. It’s being run by RT, Russia’s state-run propaganda channel. Early in it Galloway points out the Red Army’s role as the savior of European Jewry. It’s a point that’s been for years central to Russia’s propaganda. 1/10 https://t.co/AxYIkhddnC
— Izabella Tabarovsky (@IzaTabaro) July 3, 2019
Labour has been split apart by claims that the party has become hostile to Jews under the far-left Corbyn, a harsh Israel critic and longtime supporter of the Palestinian cause.
The party has been subject to an ongoing investigation by the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, a government watchdog that is looking into thousands of cases of anti-Semitic hate speech in the party’s ranks since 2015.
Since his election in 2015 to head Labour, Corbyn has fought allegations that his critical attitude toward Israel and alleged tolerance of anti-Semitism have injected Jew-hatred into the heart of the party.
In 2009, Corbyn called Hamas and Hezbollah his friends and said that Hamas is working to achieve peace and justice. In 2013, he defended an anti-Semitic mural. In 2014, he laid flowers on the graves of Palestinian terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972. The following year he said British “Zionists” don’t understand British irony.
Jewish MP Luciana Berger left the party in February, calling it “institutionally anti-Semitic.” Prior to quitting Labour, Berger faced a no confidence vote, later canceled, by local party members who said she was “continuously criticizing” Corbyn amid the ongoing row over anti-Semitism in the party.
According to a poll conducted by the Jewish Chronicle in March, some 87 percent of British Jews believe that Corbyn is himself an anti-Semite.
The Times of Israel Community.