A Labour politician who called Israel a “terrorist state” has been appointed to serve as the cabinet member for Transparency, Openness, and Equality for Birmingham City Council, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday. Councillor Waseem Zaffar’s duties will include ensuring that the Council remains impartial and honest.
During a July 2014 demonstration against Israel, Zaffar called on the crowd to “stand up in solidarity” against “something that can only be described as state supported terrorism by this Zionist Israeli government,” according to footage obtained by the Mail.
Zaffar has also drawn attention for previously being married to two women at the same time. While Zaffar issued his first spouse an Islamic divorce by mail before marrying his second partner, the divorce was not recognized under English law. He has since obtained a legal divorce.
The paper observed that Zaffar’s inflammatory positions “will raise further questions about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, which … suspended MP Naz Shah and ex-London mayor Ken Livingstone following their anti-Semitic comments.”
Shah was suspended in late April for saying that Israel should be moved to the United States, while Livingstone was suspended a day later for saying that Hitler supported Zionism.
“This is outrageous – while other people have been kicked out of the Labour party for holding these kinds of views, Waseem Zaffar has been given a cabinet job,” said Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen. “Labour promised to root out anti-Semitism, but as every day passes it looks more and more like the party is determined to sweep it under the carpet.”
Parts of a report investigating anti-Semitism at Oxford University were suppressed by the Labour Party last month. Anti-Semitism at the prestigious university came to attention in February after Alex Chalmers, then the co-president of the Oxford University Labour Club, resigned after he saw that members of the club, and the student Left in general, “have some kind of problem with Jews.”
Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP who was recently elected Mayor of London, called anti-Semitism within Labour a “badge of shame” in April.
Eylon Aslan-Levy warned in The Tower last month that whether or not Corbyn falls from power over the anti-Semitism scandal in Labour, things could get “ugly” for British Jewry.
Therein lies the tragic irony of the fight against modern anti-Semitism. Like the fabled hydra, it is liable to regenerate when attacked, because all resistance to it appears to vindicate the conspiratorial mindset: that regressive forces are attempting to thwart the inexorable march to progress by framing the Left. And therein lies the cruel paradox: when politicians make outrageous statements demonizing the Jewish state, Israel and the Diaspora Jewish public are placed in an impossible situation. If they do not react, they leave anti-Semitism to grow without a challenge; but if they do, as they are reasonably expected to do, they risk letting anti-Semitism grow because of the challenge.
Should Corbyn be deposed, one can expect to hear that his left-wing agenda was foiled by a Jewish (or Zionist) plot in collaboration with a right-wing press to protect Israeli and capitalist interests. Indeed, should he remain in power, this episode can still be spun as such a plot, albeit a failed one. How far this narrative catches on will depend on how Corbyn’s successor rationalizes his defeat. Whoever takes over will have an interest in wiping a clean state, but given Corbyn’s resounding victory in the Labour primaries in 2015, the next leader will likely come from the same camp and thus be affiliated with the same circles at the heart of the current crisis. Unless the next leader, in the eventuality that Corbyn departs, is able to cleanse the Augean stables, new Jewish conspiracies are likely to grow in that muck. Jews in Britain must be prepared to challenge this toxic narrative and ensure that it not be canonized in popular memory of this surreal scandal.
[Photo: Twitter ]