I'm jewish my mother survived the holocaust in Vienna itself.
For three and a half years she was hidden in a cellar,
and whenever the Gestapo or SS were raiding in the area she would be rolled up in a carpet
and put up against the wall to ensure she wasn't discovered.
The steel door that leads to the cellar in which she was hidden,
still has multiple bullets embedded in the metal where soldiers tried to shoot out the lock,
to find out if there was anyone in the cellar.
She lost 39 members of her family in the camps particularly in Auschwitz and Theresienstadt.
From a very young age the Holocaust has been a very prominent part,
of my personal political and intellectual development.
I felt enormously privileged to be asked to lecture at Auschwitz itself,
on how information about the arms trade could be used to prevent genocide in the future.
Walking around the camp where so many of my mother's family had perished,
was perhaps the most difficult but also the most important thing I have ever done in my life.
I became the first member of parliament in South Africa's history,
to introduce a motion on the Holocaust.
And I think it's because of this history as the son of a Holocaust survivor,
that I take issues of anti-semitism and any form of racism so incredibly seriously.
And it's because of this lifelong commitment that I find the recent use,
or what i would describe as abuse of anti-semitism,
to fight narrow factional political battles both in the United States of America,
and in the United Kingdom so difficult to see.
It came to a head when Jeremy Corbyn was described by some members of his own party
and outsiders including the Jewish board of deputies as anti-semitic.
Jeremy is one of the most anti-racist people I have ever met in my life.
"It's a time to declare our solidarity with all sections of the community,
who are under attack or under oppression,
Jewish people that arrived in Britain from Russia at the end of the 19th century,
the way they were characterised by the popular press,
the way that then became physical attacks upon them,
that then became a whole tide of anti-Jewish behaviour,
which enabled the Nazis to rise."
He is loved by many members of the orthodox Jewish community,
and by many Jews who live inside and outside his constituency.
And to suggest that the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn was particularly anti-semitic
was simply incorrect.
One of the few surveys of anti-semitism conducted by the YouGov polling company,
that survey showed that in 2015 when the Labour party had a Jewish leader in Ed Miliband,
Labour voters had the second least anti-semitism of all British political parties.
In 2017 when a similar survey was done by the same organisation,
it found that the Labour party now under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership,
had the joint least anti-semitic attitudes amongst its voters.
The Conservative party unsurprisingly UKIP exhibited far greater anti-semitism.
Despite an 830-page report leaked to the media providing overwhelming documentary evidence
that senior staff of the Labour party who were opposed to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership
delayed acting on complaints of anti-semitism in the Labour party,
the media in this country the United Kingdom barely gave the report a mention.
The fact that something as serious as anti-semitism,
is being used to fight narrow factional political battles is reprehensible.
Because what it does is it undermines and corrodes the very real struggle,
against actual anti-semitism and racism which is an incredibly important struggle in today's world.
What is at the centre of these accusations against left-wing politicians,
like Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders and others is the conflating of anti-semitism,
with any criticism of Israel.
Now of course some types of criticism of Israel can be anti-semitic,
if the actions of Israel are perceived of the actions of all jews for instance.
But to claim that criticism of Israel is in and of itself anti-semitic serves only to bolster,
the most right-wing Israeli government in history,
that continues to commit massive human rights abuses,
in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.
In redefining anti-semitism as anything that can be construed of criticism of the state of Israel,
the notion of anti-semitism loses all meaning.
This manifests for instance in the fact that Victor Orban the prime minister of Hungary,
who has explicitly used anti-semitism in his election campaigns to win and retain power,
is invited to Israel to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior politicians.
The reality that Israel's greatest friend is Donald Trump a president who has used,
actual Nazi symbols in the form of red triangles in his re-election campaign,
to label left-wing people bearing in mind that many Communists, Socialists,
and others of the left were murdered by hitler's Nazi regime.
It is these instances that reflect that the abuse of anti-semitism
and the way it is being abused in our politics currently is so dangerous.
"Jews will not replace us!"
"Very fine people on both sides"
"We will kill you that's the Proud Boys in a nutshell."
"Stand back and stand by"
The role of the media in relation to these claims of anti-semitism has been frankly appalling
and what lies behind it and this is crucially important,
is that the figures against whom anti-semitism is used be it Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders,
all have one thing in common they are anti-establishment figures,
who believe that the concentration of wealth and the inequality that results,
in British and American society has to be overcome,
by fundamental political change and structural changes to our economies.
I am extraordinarily proud of my Jewish heritage and my Jewish culture
it is a central part of my anti-racism and it is a central part of who I am.
But what I have is a commitment to fight racism of any form wherever it rears its head
and regardless who is making the racist statements.
It is how I have lived my life to date,
and it is how I will live my life until the day I die.
Given the importance of global conversations about peace about racism,
there has never been a time when independent media is more important.
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