Jew-hate: a guide for the perplexed

The below article is the original version of an opinion piece published by the Jewish Chronicle on 6 May 2016 written by CST's Dave Rich:

It's hard to keep up. Stories about antisemitism in the Labour Party have been in the news for weeks. They began back in February in the lowly ranks of a student Labour Club and have now reached Ken Livingstone, one of the biggest names in the party.

The sheer range of allegedly antisemitic statements, tweets and Facebook posts that have emerged is enough to make your head spin. While some reveal straightforward, old fashioned bigotry about Jews, most occurred in anti-Israel contexts and require close interpretation of the differences between antisemitism, anti-Zionism and harsh criticism of Israel.

This is not always straightforward, but there is a rule of thumb that can help. There are two types of language that can be used to criticise Israel. One involves the sort of criticisms made of other governments, involving "human rights", "discrimination", "inequality" and so on. The other is the reservoir of antisemitic ideas that lies deep in Europe's culture, with its talk of international conspiracies, bloodthirsty child killers, wealthy manipulators and anything to do with the Holocaust.

Criticism that uses language from the first group, even if it is inaccurate, is more likely to be legitimate. Anything from the second is probably antisemitic. With this as a rough guide, this article will try to explain some of the recent cases of antisemitism in the Labour Party.

Read the full article in the Jewish Chronicle.