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The Forde Report distorts the battle against Jew hate

The JC Leader, 22 July 2022

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July 21, 2022 09:48

Three letters render the Forde Report into the leaking of a Labour document on antisemitism worthless: JVL.

Any claim the report might otherwise have to be a serious contribution to the ongoing debate over Labour antisemitism is nullified by the proposal that Jewish Voice for Labour, a group set up by Corbynites solely to push the idea that the party did not have a problem with antisemitism, should now be responsible (along with the Jewish Labour Movement) for training in antisemitism.

JVL should be proscribed, not embraced.

Not that this is all that is wrong with the report. Whilst Mr Forde agrees that “there is nothing in the Leaked Report (or elsewhere in the evidence we have seen) to support the conclusion that the problem of antisemitism in the Party was overstated”, he nonetheless pushes a gross calumny on those who fought antisemitism in the party.

He describes their behaviour as “weaponising” the issue and treats the two sides of the issue as morally equivalent, saying that “…both factions treated it as a factional weapon” with, he writes later, “both ‘sides’ thus weaponising the issue.”

This is a warped rewriting of history. On one side were those who either swam in the sea of antisemitism or denied that such a sea existed. On the other were those campaigning to end this racism. The idea that their behaviour was equally bad is simply grotesque.

This report is a waste of time and effort. In the end, all that matters is how Labour today, under Sir Keir Starmer, deals with the issue.

He has started satisfactorily, but has an enormous amount still to do.

July 21, 2022 09:48

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