Praise the Board

This week we report divisions within the Board of Deputies over a proposed conference on Israel, which itself was only being considered after divisions over a proposed survey on Israel.

Left wing organisation Yachad has attacked the Board’s fearfulness in dropping the survey.

Other more mainstream deputies attacked the draft questionnaire’s bias towards a critical view of Israel. We have all the ingredients of a row that will fester.

But there is a more grown up way of looking at this. The Board should be congratulated for attempting to examine issues that divide the community. Instead of acting defensively, it has listened to a range of voices.

Too often in our community a position is adopted and then stuck to, no matter how misguided it might be.

The ability to raise awkward issues, rethink and respond to criticism should be a prerequisite for all leadership.

The Board should be praised, not pilloried.

Nandy doubts

Last Thursday, Lisa Nandy, the chair of Labour Friends of Palestine, won the leadership nomination of the Jewish Labour Movement.

At a stroke, this destroyed the Corbynite lie that concern over Labour antisemitism was a fig leaf for Jewish hostility to Mr Corbyn’s support for the Palestinians.

Within days of the JLM nomination, however, she endorsed a statement by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign which, inter alia, effectively called for the destruction of Israel through the right of return.

The PSC is a toxic organisation; you cannot be a genuine opponent of antisemitism and a supporter of PSC.

Her attempt to portray herself as the former is, to put it mildly, put in doubt by the latter.