For the many, but is Labour for the Jews?
IT SHOULD come as no surprise that the general election manifesto of a Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn initially sought to take a particularly onesided approach to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.
A document reportedly penned by Seumas Milne, Mr Corbyn’s communications and strategy director, and Andrew Fisher, who has long-term associations with anarchists and communists, was always going to display a warped world-view.
It was, after all, Mr Milne who once told a rally that Hamas “will not be broken, because of the spirit of resistance of the Palestinian people”, and urged the government to impose an sanctions against Israel.
When a draft version Seumas Milne of the document was leaked last week it contained a startling omission — there was no mention of Palestinian terrorism or Hamas rocket attacks.
That iteration of Labour’s policies revealed that those at the top of the party have no working understanding of the nuances involved in Middle East diplomacy.
The subsequent row over whether more balanced lines on the conflict prepared by Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, had been intentionally removed from the draft showed only how shambolic the party’s operation is.
The quid pro quo from the Corbynistas when the official manifesto was published on Tuesday, was a toughening up of the position on Palestinian statehood. The leaked policy had promised only to support the Pal- estinians at the United Nations. The final document makes clear a Labour government would ensure Britain unilaterally and immediately recognises Palestine.
The manifesto’s throwaway remarks about tackling antisemitism include a policy wonk’s approach to solving Labour’s own problem by making clear the party will use “adequate resources and firm political will” to challenge rising Jew-hate.
A hearts and minds approach would perhaps be more effective.
And the not-particularly-thinlyveiled reference to Baroness Chakrabarti’s discredited inquiry into antisemitism in the party serves only as a reminder of repeated failures on the topic.
Mr Corbyn has spent the past few weeks claiming Labour is for voters from all sections of society.
The publication of this manifesto will leave our community weighing up whether the party that says it is “for the many, not the few” can also lay claim to be for the Jews.