Right-wing Israel lobby group goes after Clive Lewis - but ends up making his point for him

A right-wing pro-Israel lobby group is going after a left-leaning Labour Party MP. Specifically, Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS) has called for Norwich South MP Clive Lewis’s expulsion from the party. Unsurprisingly, the group has lodged a complaint to the party against Lewis for alleged antisemitism.

Of course, we’ve been here before – as it wouldn’t be the first time LAAS smeared the Labour left with baseless allegations of antisemitism.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is of course the most prominent casualty of this long-standing stitch up. Now, LAAS has turned its sights on Lewis for speaking out against Israel.

Clive Lewis: dehumanisation of Palestinians linked to UK far-right pogroms

Specifically, Clive Lewis made the connection between the West’s dehumanisation and Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, and the far-right Islamophobic pogroms in the UK.

The link between the daily inhumanity being metted out to Palestinians and rising Islamophobia in the UK, are not unconnected.

The inhumanity being shown to one is giving ‘permission’ for the other.

These actions diminish us all. pic.twitter.com/ZETc1guaVS

— Clive Lewis MP (@labourlewis) August 10, 2024

Of course, Lewis was right to drive this home. The UK’s Islamophobia cannot be extricated from this – because racism doesn’t manifest in a vacuum. It’s perfectly evident to anyone remotely paying attention that after ten months of corporate media and political establishment genocide apologism, white supremacy and Zionism runs through the very core of the UK right.

Plus, as the Canary’s Steve Topple previously wrote:

Allowing Black and brown people to be demonised over here helps with the West’s global agenda of making them subhuman. How else do you think Israel could get away with killing 40,000 Palestinians without the UN sending in peacekeepers or the US invading?

Ergo, it’s easy to imagine even on a surface level how devaluing Palestinian lives – largely Muslim – would lead to the same thing here. In fact, it has been plain to see. In February, Middle East Monitor (MEM) reported that Islamophobic attacks had risen by 235% since 7 October. Some on X poignantly summed this up:

Clive Lewis rightly highlights that the dehumanisation of people in Palestine goes hand in hand with the dehumanisation of Muslims in the UK.

In both situations people have been racialised as ‘other’, categorised as lesser, to justify killings.

Violence normalises violence. https://t.co/foTryMjds8

— Minesh (@min_esh) August 12, 2024

The fact actually is that it’s worse than Lewis’s relatively mild post actually suggested:

This is right but it goes further, too.

Ever since the assault on Gaza began & the regular ceasefire marches, the (always underlying) racism & Islamophobia in anti-migrant movements I work against has been ramped up, extremely obviously emboldened & come to the surface. https://t.co/EJDtcMz52f

— Zoe Gardner (@ZoeJardiniere) August 10, 2024

Tommy Robinson’s Zionist connections

And this only really scratches the surface. Key race riot inciter Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – Tommy Robinson – has multifarious links to the Zionist movement. Lowkey has detailed these:

Tommy Robinson has previously stated he would “fight for Israel in a war.”

This thread examines Robinson and EDL’s very clear material relationship with the Zionist Movement and considers the possibility that the racist attacks and pogroms in Britain are part of that fight.

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) August 4, 2024

For one, he was co-founder of the English Defence League (EDL) with Israeli intelligence employee Paul Ray:

Tommy Robinson’s co-founder of the EDL was an individual called Paul Ray.

Paul Ray worked for Israeli intelligence, infiltrating and spying on the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) of which Rachel Corrie was a member.

The information he gathered was… pic.twitter.com/9Ve5D6HAX3

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) August 4, 2024

And there were more relationships:

Tommy Robinson’s co-founder of the EDL was an individual called Paul Ray.

Paul Ray worked for Israeli intelligence, infiltrating and spying on the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) of which Rachel Corrie was a member.

The information he gathered was… pic.twitter.com/9Ve5D6HAX3

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) August 4, 2024

Naturally, his ties don’t end there. As the Times of Israel reported, Philadelphia-based think tank Middle East Forum has been bankrolling Robinson:

Daniel Pipes, MEF’s president, confirmed to The Times of Israel that his group has spent roughly $60,000 on three demonstrations defending Robinson’s legal trial.

Pipes said that he first met Robinson in December 2017 and was “impressed” by him. He described Robinson as part of a group of people who are “trying to sustain their civilization, trying to keep Europe Europe, trying to keep the West the West. Overall, I think that their effort is sound and needed.”

In fact, it noted that multiple right-wing pro-Israel organisations have been sponsoring Robinson.

So, right-wingers can hardly argue there’s no connection between the recent race riot attacks against Muslim, Black, brown, and migrant communities in the UK, and Israel’s ongoing war crimes and genocide. Or so you would think.

Right-wing lobby group cry antisemitism

Enter, LAAS, who not only denied this tie altogether, but held it up as an example of antisemitism.

Director of the right-wing pro-Israel group Alex Hearn told Sky News that:

It is very concerning that people across the political spectrum, from “anti-racists” to the far right, have fantasised that ‘Zionists’ and Israel are to blame for unrest across Britain,” he said.

A recent report by the Community Security Trust showed antisemitism in the last six months has gone up 105%, and that the pretext for these 1,978 incidents are often Palestine. This includes synagogues targeted 76 times and 121 assaults.

For a Labour MP to blame a conflict thousands of miles away for the recent racism in far-right riots in Britain is highly irresponsible.

When attacks against British Jews exploded following the Hamas 7 October massacre, no such link was made by Mr Lewis.

However, as SKWAWKBOX underscored:

The Community Security Trust (CST) is a UK charity deeply committed to promoting Israel and combating the pro-Palestinian ‘boycott, divestment and sanctions’ (BDS) campaign against goods and services from illegally-occupied Palestinian territory. It has equated opposition to Israel’s genocide with antisemitism, naming anti-genocide campaigners as the main source of antisemitic incidents.

Notably, the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) unpacked the CST’s claims of a “huge rise” in antisemitism since Israel began its abhorrent genocide. Unsurprisingly, CST had conflated antisemitism with anti-Zionism.

This has been glaringly obvious as the Western corporate media and right-wing politicians have branded pro-Palestine protest demonstrations as antisemitic on multiple occasions.

It was almost as if LAAS had an agenda. Of course, as some on X pointed out, this is precisely the case:

Official?
LAAS?
It’s a gang of SELF APPOINTED witch hunters,using filthy false accusations of antisemitism to protect a genocidal foreign power, with the aim of getting rid of every one of its critics in politics and the media

What’s ‘official’ about this poisonous Mafia? https://t.co/L3SZ4fXxuk

— MsAlfieB 🇵🇸 #StopThe Genocide#BDS#ItWasAScam (@duduschka) August 13, 2024

Much like AIPAC in the US, Labour Against Antisemitism need to register as an agent for a foreign government. Because not only was @labourlewis‘ post not anywhere near the realms of ‘antisemitism’, the only way to oppose what he said is if you were parroting Isreali govt spin. https://t.co/6AIZEXvqTT

— Dave Robinson (@daviddotrobbo) August 12, 2024

One poster noted that the right-wing genocide-apologist organisation had stark double-standards:

Alex Hearn LAAS director raised the complaint, stating; “For a Labour MP to blame a conflict thousands of miles away for the recent racism in far-right riots in Britain is highly irresponsible.” Yet here 👇🏻LAAS connect British Jews to the conflict re possible arms embargo. 🤔 https://t.co/Ydz1KBaHaD pic.twitter.com/N0HJ9LYaM1

— Teri ☘️💙♿️ (@mettlesome_teri) August 12, 2024

In other words, the UK mulling an arms embargo to stop Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians: connected to UK antisemitism. Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza: unconnected with the recent assaults on UK Muslims. Got it.

Politicians must speak out

CAGE International wondered why other politicians in parliament hadn’t yet had the courage to say it:

Is Clive Lewis the only Member of Parliament who has had the courage to make a connection between dehumanisation required for a genocide in Palestine and anti Muslim pogroms in the UK?#FarageRiots https://t.co/gL14yePMFy

— CAGE International (@CAGEintl) August 11, 2024

Right on cue, socialist and committed anti-racist John McDonnell backed Clive Lewis’s statement:

It’s a bizarre warped logic that accuses Clive Lewis of antisemitism when he comments on how the visible inhumanity towards Muslims in Gaza displayed daily on our screens feeds into the inhumanity of some in our own country towards Muslims here. @labourlewis https://t.co/B32nKKLEWy

— John McDonnell (@johnmcdonnellMP) August 12, 2024

Other politicians like deputy Green Party leader Zack Polanski, and Jewish Labour Party councillor Martin Abrams voiced their support:

What Clive is saying here makes sense.

Much of the outrage is from people conflating the actions of the Israeli government with Jewish people.

That’s dangerous and they should stop.

An injustice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere. https://t.co/DfdZfawVPs

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) August 12, 2024

As a Jewish Labour Party Member I would like somebody, anybody, to explain to me how this tweet by Clive Lewis is in any way Antisemitic?

Honestly this is so tiresome. You’ve literally got gangs of neo-Nazis & fascists rampaging on our streets and this is what LAAS is busy doing pic.twitter.com/LBZ5vHsfdv

— Cllr Martin Abrams 🕊️🍉 (@Martin_Abrams) August 12, 2024

Another Jewish Labour member standing for the party’s National Executive Committee pointed out the attacks showed more about the embedded Islamophobia of Zionists than anything antisemitic:

The attacks on Clive Lewis for his humane and nuanced post reflect the entrenched Islamophobia of those who defend Netanyahu’s racist state. https://t.co/Ue22arNtk2

— Naomi4LabNEC (@Naomi4LabNEC) August 12, 2024

In reality, it was actually the right-wing lobby group perpetuating antisemitism:

Claiming that this tweet is antisemitic is to conflate ‘the state of Israel’ (and the governments supporting them) with ‘all Jews’.

Which is a fairly obvious example of antisemitism in itself. https://t.co/pcG0FLTHrr

— Stella Cast 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ (they/she) (@SpillerOfTea) August 12, 2024

LAAS racism

One person pointed out that LAAS’s racism was hardly anything new:

If we’re talking about LAAS – A reminder that E*ma Pickens Husband is a massive fucking racist. https://t.co/z9xmn969pC pic.twitter.com/hm3uXrMTd9

— Tobias T (@TobiasTaylor) August 12, 2024

Therefore going after a sitting Black MP is entirely on brand as well, as climate and social justice campaigner Asad Rehman noted:

The hounding by bad faith actors of black/brown politicians for speaking out about the pernicious role dehumanising people has in normalising racism is itself racist. Solidarity to @labourlewis

— asad rehman (@chilledasad100) August 12, 2024

Thankfully, for once, the Labour Party doesn’t seem to be pandering to Zionists. Astonishingly out of character, we know. According to Independent, the party isn’t planning disciplinary action against Lewis over his post.

Though, lets not get too far ahead of ourselves. Starmer quickly threw Lewis under the bus regardless. According to the outlet:

The prime minister quickly distanced himself from the remarks, with his spokesperson on Monday saying Sir Keir would “completely disagree” with the suggestion that events in Gaza are to blame for the unrest in Britain, which saw mosques attacked and more than 900 people arrested.

She added that he would “never seek to conflate those two issues

At the end of the day, LAAS didn’t expose a left-wing Labour politician as antisemitic. It was quite the opposite in fact. Its petty, motivated complaint only bared the right-wing’s deeply entrenched Islamophobia as part and parcel of its pro-Israel and colonial racism en masse. In other words, it proved that Lewis’s point was correct all along. And that until Palestine is free, this Islamophobic violence in the UK will not end.

Featured image via the Canary