Corbyn’s Twitter feed attacks cartoonist Carlos Latuff

Latuff is a cartoonist who calls out the crimes of the State of Israel and its apologists everywhere. His cartoons are sharp and clear and make perfect sense. Sadly, Jeremy Corbyn's Twitter feed has attacked one of Latuff's cartoons as "antisemitic" for alleging that Israel is weaponising baseless allegations of antisemitism to smear those who campaign actively for Palestinian rights.

"No, Mr. @jeremycorbyn that banner was not disgusting. Disgusting is:
- how the #Israel Lobby™ weaponize anti-Semitism to silence critics.
- how you bowed down to your detractors and ordered removal of a banner with a @Mondoweiss cartoon I made in defense of you!"

It seems that merely alleging that Israel and its allies falsely smear Palestine supporters as anti-Semitic is itself proof of antisemitism. Denying you were a witch in medieval Europe was proof of guilt. When a witchfinder decided someone was a witch, only two verdicts could follow - "Guilty" or "Very guilty".

While Israeli snipers murder Palestinian men,women and children, double amputees, journalists and medics, the UK's Tory Foreign minister attacks the UNHCR for reporting about such massacres. But Jeremy Hunt is a fully paid up member of the defenders of Israeli murder, the Conservative Friends of Israel. He works assiduously to ensure UK arms merchants can sell to barbarous regimes in Israel, India and Saudi Arabia. The frequent mis-pronunciation of his name is very revealing.

Attacks from those quarters are to be welcomed for we know who they are and what they do to those under their power. It shows they fear us. Attacks from someone like Corbyn with a past record of support for Palestinian solidarity are different. It's not the enemy that will get you - it's those you consider to be friends.

Bertold Brecht wrote from 1930's Germany as a communist but the idea applies to Palestine campaigners as well: Brecht had "many dents in his helmet. And some of them are even the work of the enemy."

The Guardian has censored cartoonist Steve Bell's work repeatedly on Israel-related topics, including the Labour Party witch hunt:

The UNHCR reported the lived reality of Palestinians under the Zionist heel - Carlos Latuff's is a cartoon conveying the lived reality of those who campaign against Israeli crimes - murder, dispossession, destruction and burning of farms. We are endlessly slandered by the pro-Israel Gang as "antisemites". For the Labour Party to call on the police to remove the cartoon, and to condemn it as antisemtiic is to give succour and protection to the defenders of mass murder and ethnic cleansing. They may also come to regret that the Labour Party set a precedent by having police suppress free expression in public squares.

The cartoon - and Latuff's wider work - deserves to be widely promoted and shared by those who stand foursquare with the Palestinian people and against Israeli crimes. Some good will come from this wretched incident in bringing his art to an even wider audience.

SPSC members - and millions of others - agree with the message of Carlos Latuff's art for some of us have been dragged through the criminal court system on absurd and sinister charges of antisemitism, with the pro-Israel Gang in Scotland baying for a conviction. Dismayed by repeated Scottish sheriffs denying legal protection from criticism to the Israeli State, they publicly lied about the matter after the absurd charges were dismissed as so baseless that they should never have been brought in the first place. We join those huge numbers who know at a very deep level that the Israeli Embassy in the UK has weaponised false anti-semitism charges to silence and intimidate critics of its barbarities or the pernicious ideology of Zionism.

Carlos Latuff will not lack support - just this week, a major publishing initiative has evoked deperate efforts by the pro-Israel Gang to prevent discussion of its contents.  Brighton Waterstones cancelled a launch of Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, the Party and Public Belief. The study by Greg Philo, Mike Berry, Justin Schlosberg, Antony Lerman and David Miller analyses accusations of antisemitism against the Labour Party after Corbyn was elected Leader.

In the last three years there were over five thousand news stories and articles in the national press alone. Bad News for Labour examines the impact of this coverage on public beliefs about the Party. It replaces baseless allegations with the rigorous analysis of carefully compiled evidence.

Corbyn's credibility on the issue of Palestine, built up over many years, is now used to attack those who remain committed to Palestinian freedom.

Mick Napier
23 September 2019
mick@scottishpsc.org.uk