Corbyn's success also wasn't evidence that the power structure he challenged had weakened. The system was still in place and it still had a choke-hold on the political and media establishments that exist to uphold its interests. Which is why it has been mobilizing these forces endlessly to damage Corbyn and avert the risk of a further, even more disastrous "accident," such as his becoming prime minister.
Listing the ways the state-corporate media have sought to undermine Corbyn would sound preposterous to anyone not deeply immersed in these media-constructed narratives. But almost all of us have been exposed to this kind of "brainwashing under freedom" since birth.
The initial attacks on Corbyn were for being poorly dressed, sexist, unstatesmanlike, a national security threat, a Communist spy relentless, unsubstantiated smears the like of which no other party leader had ever faced. But over time the allegations became even more outrageously propagandistic as the campaign to undermine him not only failed but backfired not least, because Labour membership rocketed under Corbyn to make the party the largest in Europe.
As the establishment's need to keep him away from power has grown more urgent and desperate so has the nature of the attacks.
Redefining anti-semitism
Corbyn was extremely unusual in many ways as the leader of a western party within sight of power. Personally he was self-effacing and lived modestly. Ideologically he was resolutely against the thrust of four decades of a turbo-charged neoliberal capitalism unleashed by Thatcher and Reagan in the early 1980s; and he opposed foreign wars for empire, fashionable "humanitarian interventions" whose real goal was to attack other sovereign states either to control their resources, usually oil, or line the pockets of the military-industrial complex.
It was difficult to attack Corbyn directly for these positions. There was the danger that they might prove popular with voters. But Corbyn was seen to have an Achilles' heel. He was a life-long anti-racism activist and well known for his support for the rights of the long-suffering Palestinians. The political and media establishments quickly learned that they could re-characterize his support for the Palestinians and criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. He was soon being presented as a leader happy to preside over an "institutionally" anti-semitic party.
Under pressure of these attacks, Labour was forced to adopt a new and highly controversial definition of anti-semitism one rejected by leading jurists and later repudiated by the lawyer who devised it that expressly conflates criticism of Israel, and anti-Zionism, with Jew hatred. One by one Corbyn's few ideological allies in the party -- those outside the Blairites consensus -- have been picked off as anti-semites. They have either fallen foul of this conflation or, as with Labour MP Chris Williamson, they have been tarred and feathered for trying to defend Labour's record against the accusations of a supposed endemic anti-semitism in its ranks.
The bad faith of the anti-semitism smears were particularly clear in relation to Williamson. The comment that plunged him into so much trouble now leading twice to his suspension was videoed. In it he can be heard calling anti-semitism a "scourge" that must be confronted. But also, in line with all evidence, Williamson denied that Labour had any particular anti-semitism problem. In part he blamed the party for being too ready to concede unwarranted ground to critics, further stoking the attacks and smears. He noted that Labour had been "demonized as a racist, bigoted party," adding: "Our party's response has been partly responsible for that because in my opinion ... we've backed off far too much, we have given too much ground, we've been too apologetic."
The Guardian has been typical in mis-characterizing Williamson's remarks not once but each time it has covered developments in his case. Every Guardian report has stated, against the audible evidence, that Williamson said Labour was "too apologetic about anti-semitism." In short, the Guardian and the rest of the media have insinuated that Williamson approves of anti-semitism. But what he actually said was that Labour was "too apologetic" when dealing with unfair or unreasonable allegations of anti-semitism, that it had too willingly accepted the unfounded premise of its critics that the party condoned racism.
Like the Salem witch-hunts
The McCarthyite nature of this process of misrepresentation and guilt by association was underscored when Jewish Voice for Labour, a group of Jewish party members who have defended Corbyn against the anti-semitism smears, voiced their support for Williamson. Jon Lansman, a founder of the Momentum group originally close to Corbyn, turned on the JVL calling them "part of the problem and not part of the solution to antisemitism in the Labour Party". In an additional, ugly but increasingly normalized remark, he added: "Neither the vast majority of individual members of JVL nor the organization itself can really be said to be part of the Jewish community."
In this febrile atmosphere, Corbyn's allies have been required to confess that the party is institutionally anti-semitic, to distance themselves from Corbyn and often to submit to anti-semitism training. To do otherwise, to deny the accusation is, as in the Salem witch-hunts, treated as proof of guilt.
The anti-semitism claims have been regurgitated almost daily across the narrow corporate media "spectrum," even though they are unsupported by any actual evidence of an anti-semitism problem in Labour beyond a marginal one representative of wider British society. The allegations have reached such fever-pitch, stoked into a hysteria by the media, that the party is now under investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission the only party apart from the neo-Nazi British National Party ever to face such an investigation.
These attacks have transformed the whole discursive landscape on Israel, the Palestinians, Zionism and anti-semitism in ways unimaginable 20 years ago, when I first started reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Then the claim that anti-Zionism opposition to Israel as a state privileging Jews over non-Jews was the same as anti-semitism sounded patently ridiculous. It was an idea promoted only by the most unhinged apologists for Israel.
Now, however, we have leading liberal commentators such as the Guardian's Jonathan Freedland claiming not only that Israel is integral to their Jewish identity but that they speak for all other Jews in making such an identification. To criticize Israel is to attack them as Jews, and by implication to attack all Jews. And therefore any Jew dissenting from this consensus, any Jew identifying as anti-Zionist, any Jew in Labour who supports Corbyn and there are many, even if they are largely ignored are denounced, in line with Lansman, as the "wrong kind of Jews." It may be absurd logic, but such ideas are now so commonplace as to be unremarkable.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
