Antisemitism. It’s Happened Again
We thought that the revelation last week, that Council Deputy Chair Nazir Ahmed had been suspended over allegations of antisemitism was the last of a line of cases which have bedevilled Newham Council and Newham Labour.
It wasn’t.
Now we learn that Cllr Mushtaq Mughal, no less than the Chair of the Labour Group has been suspended amid allegations of antisemitism. The thrust of his argument is that Israel is an illegitimate state, Palestine was there before the advent of Israel. And here is the proof, a coin in English, Arabic and Hebrew.
Well of course it was there. It was a territory mandated to the British Empire after WW1, it wasn’t a sovereign state and it hadn’t been a sovereign state beforehand. Prior to the 1918 armistice, the land that is now Israel/Palestine was split into several regions (vilayets) and districts (sanjaks) of the Ottoman Empire.
Shortly after the conquest of Damascus in the Arab Revolt/WW1, the tribal Arab armies and Arab nationalist societies did in fact proclaim an Arab Kingdom. Only, it wasn’t called Palestine, ironically, the only people calling the land Palestine at this time were those supporting the creation of a Jewish homeland. The Arab Kingdom of Syria went from the Turkish borders to the Negev. In fact, it actually came into existence, for about four months after which the Foreign Secretaries of France and Britain, (Messers Picot and Sykes), stamped their imprimaturs on the maps of the Middle East and brought the Kingdom of Syria to an end.
In the 1920s Most of the Mandate of Palestine was hived off to become the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, alongside the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq.
Cllr Mughal is a lawyer, we understand. His command of the facts might cause you to hesitate before engaging him.
He reposts this passage from another contributor.
A coin is not proof of peaceful coexistence, indeed Wikipedia lists a painfully long list of incidents and killings in the mandate period. One hopes that Jews and Arabs will live in peace, rather like they do in Israel. But peace between Israel and (the competing armed factions within) the PA does require that both sides commit to the process. We would welcome the advent of talks.
Lastly Mughal relies upon a small Jewish group, Neturei Karta, a Heredi sect who do not believe that God has ordained an independent Jewish state and will not do so until the arrival of the Messiah. It is to this fringe sect that he goes to find the voice of authentic Judaism. And of course, they don’t want an Israel.
In the refrain common to conspiracy theorists, he encourages readers to consult the videos of an eccentric sect and ignore the mainstream media, because they won’t tell you the truth.
There have been calls to suspend Mughal. A spokesperson for Labour Against Antisemitism said to the Recorder, “We are uncertain why they are failing to do that in this instance. We urge an immediate suspension and a full investigation into what appears to be an endemic culture of anti-Jewish racism among the Labour Group on Newham Council."
It is a question we have asked before.
Why does the Labour Party sit on its hands? Surely the time has come for a root and branch review of the Newham Labour membership.
The Labour Party in Newham has been the beneficiary of a very large number of new membership applications from a single religious community. If some of its leaders are so confident that they can express their racism so openly, what is being said behind closed doors?
Just a question or two, if anyone out there knows the answers.
How many cases of antisemitism reported in Newham Labour Group were there say, between 1995-2018?
How many were there between 2018-2021?
What happened in 2018 that might account for this change?
Answers on a postcard to……