Here Freedland effectively backed the draconian and rejected definition of anti-semitism originally proposed by the JLM at the conference. According to both the JLM and Freedland, anti-semitism cannot be adduced through objective criteria, or by applying traditional definitions, such as hateful statements or actions against Jews because they are Jews.
Instead, Freedland and the JLM believe that anti-semitism can be defined far more broadly. It exists, they say, if it is perceived as such by its victims, even if no tangible evidence can be identified. It is like a mood sensed only by those -- Jews -- who are attuned to it through their firsthand experience of anti-semitism.
Witchfinder FreedlandDisturbing as this definition is, Freedland went further. He posited that Livingstone, Loach and McCluskey were arrogantly dismissing a Jewish consensus on the prevalence of anti-semitism in the party. But there was a deep flaw in his reasoning: the conference had just proved that this consensus did not, in fact, exist.
The non-Jewish trio were speaking not only about their own failure to identify examples of anti-semitism in the Labour movement. As prominent figures in the party, they were also giving voice to those Jewish members whose views had long been ignored because they did not accord with those of the party's Israel lobby, the JLM.
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, a leading member of Jewish Voice for Labour, made precisely this point: "When McCluskey and Loach say they know Labour is not a hotbed of antisemitism, they speak with the authority of Jewish comrades who have said so repeatedly, and been ignored."
Jewish Voice for Labour had been established to provide a counterweight to the JLM and give Jews critical of Israel a collective voice. Here was Freedland not only discounting their voice but failing to notice it even existed. Jews, Freedland implied, only counted when, like the JLM, they wrapped themselves in the Israeli flag.
But Freedland was still not satisfied. Like some Witchfinder General, he accused the trio not just of ignorance about the prevalence of anti-semitism in Labour, but of actually being anti-semitic themselves for claiming that the moral panic about anti-semitism had been manipulated for political ends. Freedland quoted as proof Loach's comment: "It's funny these stories [about anti-semitism] suddenly appeared when Jeremy Corbyn became leader, isn't it?"
Anti-Jewish trope?Freedland observed, again with a satisfyingly circular logic: "For Len [McCluskey] and the Kens [Loach and Livingstone] and their allies, it's all made up. Perhaps they don't realize that that itself is a tired anti-Jewish trope: that Jews invent stories of suffering to drive a secret political agenda. Or, to put it more simply, that there is a Jewish conspiracy."
But Livingstone, Loach and McCluskey never posited a Jewish conspiracy. That was a figment of Freedland's feverish imagination. Unlike him, they fully recognized that a significant section of Jewish opinion in the Labour party felt exactly the same way they did about the misuse of unsubstantiated anti-semitism allegations to discredit Corbyn and deflect attention from his efforts to focus the party's attention on Palestinian suffering.
What this trio and the Jewish Voice for Labour had argued instead was that a small, unrepresentative group inside Labour -- a self-declared pressure group -- was trying to advance the aims of the Israeli state. This was hardly a radical conclusion. After all, the JLM was doing exactly what it claims to be doing -- promoting Israel's interests -- while additionally seeking to conflate those interests with the supposed interests of all Jews and the Labour party.
Like all lobbies, the Israel lobby plays the cards it has in its hand to win its case. But unlike other lobbies, the Israel lobby can silence critics with a powerful threat -- of tarring them as anti-semites. Sadly, Freedland amply proved a very human truth: people who wield power, however limited, invariably end up using and abusing it to their own benefit.
Divisive identity politicsThe new definition of anti-semitism that liberal Zionists, and the JLM, wish to foist on British political life is troubling indeed, and draws heavily on the most divisive kind of identity politics. It asserts that Israel and Zionism are at the core of modern Jewish identity. To criticize Israel is, therefore, to attack Jewish identity -- to commit a hate crime. To be "offensive."
If that sounds Orwellian in its implications, too bad. To dispute this claim is proof of anti-semitism too. Like the Medieval dunking of witches, you cannot win.
Here is Freedland, in another column, rationalizing in more detail an idea taking ground in left politics in Britain and much of the west: that Jews should be left to decide what constitutes anti-semitism:
"On the left, black people are usually allowed to define what's racism; women can define sexism; Muslims are trusted to define Islamophobia. But when Jews call out something as anti-semitic, leftist non-Jews feel curiously entitled to tell Jews they're wrong, that they are exaggerating or lying or using it as a decoy tactic -- and to then treat them to a long lecture on what anti-Jewish racism really is.
"The left would call it misogynist 'mansplaining' if a man talked that way to a woman. They'd be mortified if they were caught doing that to LGBT people or Muslims. But to Jews, they feel no such restraint."
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