By Paul O’Hanlon

Thursday November 26th is Thanksgiving Day as the world waits for US President Donald Trump to acquiesce to the inevitable.

President elect Joe Biden was the chosen Democratic candidate after the charismatic and popular Bernie Sanders paid the penalty for expressing sympathy with the Palestinians. Speaking at the fifth democratic presidential debate in Atlanta on November 20th 2019 he opined, “It is no longer good enough for us to be pro-Israel, I am pro-Israel, but we must treat the Palestinians with the dignity they deserve.” Smearing Sanders as an anti-Semite was tricky as he himself is Jewish so the Democratic establishment simply threw all their support behind Biden.

Those of a certain age will remember Jesse Jackson’s support for a Palestinian state in 1984 which effectively cost him that year’s Democratic nomination, won by Walter Mondale.

In Britain long serving MP (member of parliament) and former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was suspended by current leader Sir Keir Starmer for supposed anti-Semitism. Though now reinstated as a member of the Labour party he is no longer allowed to sit as a Labour MP.

A lazy headline `Corbyn suspended by Labour Party over anti-Semitism` in the Edinburgh Evening News which is typical of most British papers recently implies to the casual reader that Corbyn is a proven anti-Semite when in fact he is a man who has campaigned against all forms of racism all his political life. The former speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow who himself is Jewish has known Corbyn for over two decades and has stated in an interview (with the Sunday Times magazine) that in 22 years in the House of Commons, he never faced anti-Semitism from either Corbyn or the beleaguered Labour Party.

In coming within a whisker of winning the June 2017 UK general election Corbyn frightened the life out of the British establishment after being dismissed as a no-hoper who would be hammered and humiliated. The odds on him becoming head of the party in the 2015 Labour leadership contest were 200/1 and the odds on him forcing a hung parliament which he did in June 2017 were about 5/1. Therefore, he overcame odds of 1000/1 against.  The ruling Conservative party under then leader Theresa May could only cling tenuously to power by forming an unsavoury alliance with the far-right Democratic Unionist party.

For the plutocracy and billionaire media barons this could not be allowed a second time and Corbyn would have to be smeared.

Remarkably the smear tactic used was to portray this mild, gentle, humane man as a vicious racist, terrorist and anti-Semite. During the 30 year long troubles in Ulster Corbyn did meet with Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams and this was considered controversial at the time, although there was nothing illegal in the meetings and Corbyn consistently said he maintained links with Sinn Fein to work for a resolution to the armed conflict.

It is now known that the British government-maintained contacts to the IRA leadership through a secret back channel for much of this period too. So, Jeremy Corbyn was doing no more than Tony Blair, or early 1970s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland William Whitelaw did when he negotiated a ceasefire with the IRA via intermediaries.

Whilst anti-Semitism, racism and Islamophobia exists in almost every political party (and undoubtedly should be challenged at every level), if you take the care to look at Corbyn’s constituency work and history, even to suggest that he is in any way personally hostile to or prejudiced against Jews is almost laughable.

Jewish historian Geoffrey Alderman recalled an anecdote about Jeremy Corbyn when back in 1987, Corbyn successfully campaigned to stop property developers taking over a Jewish cemetery.

It turns out that Dame Margaret Hodge MP, who has smeared Corbyn as an anti-Semite was leader of Islington Council at the time. Although Hodge’s personal view is unspecified, under her leadership the council approved “destroying the gravestones and digging-up and reburying the bodies” to build for-profit properties.

Alderman, who has authored many books on Jewish history, wrote that the 176-year-old cemetery was of “great historic and architectural interest”.

“The fact of the matter is that Corbyn has an impressive record of supporting Jewish communal initiatives. For instance, he was recently supportive of Jewish efforts to facilitate the speedy issue of death certificates by the north London coroner. In 2015 he took part in a ceremony in his Islington constituency to commemorate the founding of the North London Synagogue. In 2010 he put his name to an EDM [Early Day Motion (tabled by Diane Abbott)] calling on the UK government to facilitate the settlement of Yemeni Jews in Britain. Indeed, I could fill this entire article with a list of philo-Semitic EDMs that Corbyn has signed since he was first elected as Labour MP for Islington North in 1983.”

The new Labour party leader Sir Keir Starmer ran the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) when it pressured Sweden not to “get cold feet” and drop the bogus case against whistle blower Juliann Assange. One of Starmer’s first acts as leader of the opposition was to sack Shadow Secretary of State for Education Rebecca Long-Bailey, saying she shared an article containing `an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.` It is likely that others will follow on equally ill-defined grounds.

While condemning prejudice and hatred of Jewish people I feel a distinction needs to be drawn between hatred of Jews which is anti-Semitism and condemnation of Israel’s repression of the Palestinian people which is justifiable criticism. Remember critics of Israeli foreign policy include many prominent Jewish people such as former Labour shadow foreign secretary Gerald Kaufman, famous British playwright Harold Pinter as well as American academics Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky.  There are many Jewish groups which campaign for justice for the Palestinians including Scottish Jews for a Just Peace, Independent Jewish Voices, Jewish Voice for Labour and the US based Jewish Voice for Peace.

The point is simply this, criticising the policies of Israel does not make someone an anti-Semite.

The current witch hunt against Jeremy Corbyn rather reminds me of the infamous accusations made by US Senator Joe McCarthy.

Briefly, Joseph McCarthy was the US Republican Senator for Wisconsin from 1947 – 1957. This was the time that the cold war was its height with the Korean War of 1950-1953 and the seemingly real possibility of all out nuclear war when the Soviet Union tested its atom bomb in 1949.

McCarthy was largely unknown to the public until he started to make wild allegations of communist infiltration in the US government and armed forces.

Remarkably he was never seriously challenged and asked for evidence during his 4-year reign of terror in the 1950s.

His comeuppance came in 1954 when legendary US journalist Ed Murrow took on McCarthy in one of the most notorious news broadcasts in television history. Murrow pointed out that “Accusation is not proof.” When McCarthy was asked for proof instead of his laundry list he disintegrated. His fall from grace was as spectacular as his rise. Having descended into alcoholism and morphine addiction McCarthy died prematurely at just 48 in 1957.This McCarthyite witch hunt against Jeremy Corbyn, a decent man, should cease and he should be reinstated into the party he has served for 55 years since being a teenager.

With regards to the troubled areas of conflict around the globe, the ideal should be for people of all faiths and no faiths to live together in a peaceful land whether it be Scotland, Ireland, England, Norway, the Middle East, The United States, Canada, Russia, Australia or indeed anywhere else.

Corbyn has given his whole political life to the Labour party. He should be reinstated now.