Three own goals in three weeks …

First we had Simon Johnson of the JLC badmouthing the CAA Survey.

Then we had the CST’s Antisemitic Discourse Report which (page 13) states ‘Not all anti-Zionists are antisemites and anti-Zionism is not necessarily antisemitic’.  The only time anti-Zionism is NOT anti-semitic is when it’s voiced by someone who does not believe in the nation state, period. I have never met such a person.

Own goal #3 was scored yesterday by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR). It published a survey of anti-semitic attitudes. The Survey makes the cardinal error of separating what it calls ‘anti-semitic’ attitudes from ‘anti-Israel’ attitudes – which however we (and the IHRA Definition) would categorise as anti-semitic, not merely ‘anti-Israel’. Here they are:

Israel is committing mass murder in Palestine’;
‘Israel is deliberately trying to wipe out the Palestinian population’;
‘Israel is an apartheid state’;
‘The interests of Israelis are at odds with the interests of the rest of the world’;
‘Israel has too much control over global affairs’;
‘Israel exploits Holocaust victimhood for its own purposes’;
‘Israel is the cause of all the troubles in the Middle East’;
‘People should boycott Israeli goods and products’
.

This leads to a calamitous Own Goal in the paper. We are told (p46) that ‘Thus, the very left-wing are, on the whole, no more antisemitic than the general population, but neither are they less antisemitic.’

However when it comes to the ‘anti-Israel’ attitudes (which are in fact anti-semitic attitudes) the ‘very left wing’ scores way higher than other political categories, see these charts taken from the paper (page 45).
JPR Survey Sept 17

The Survey suggests (left chart) that a range of 29-37% of the far Left hold at least one anti-semitic attitude BUT the range holding at least one ‘anti-Israel’ attitude (which we and the IHRA Definition would deem anti-semitic) is 75-82% (right chart), much higher than other political groupings! (The range denotes the 95% confidence interval for inferring population proportions from the sample).

The Corbynites of course will seize on the statement ‘the very left-wing are, on the whole, no more antisemitic than the general population’.

They must be challenged.

Note: I inadvertently wrote here that the Pears Institute is a major funder of JPR. This was incorrect and has been corrected to the Pears Foundation. The inference which some drew in the original text, that I was suggesting that the director of the Institute was using the power of funding to influence JPR’s research, was obviously not intended and I apologise for any misunderstanding.

 

About the Author
Jonathan Hoffman is a blogger who has written for United With Israel, CiFWatch (now UK Media Watch), Harrys Place and Z-Word.
Related Topics
Related Posts
Comments