Norman Finkelstein calls out Dame Hodge and speaks to “the crucifixion of Corbyn”

Here is a brief summary of Margaret Hodge’s role in the campaign against Jeremy Corbyn – for a fuller account read the addendum to this post which also includes an interview with Palestinian scholar Ghada Karmi:

Having defamed Corbyn by calling him “a f—ing racist and antisemite” deliberately within earshot of journalists, Margaret Hodge was rightly called to a disciplinary hearing by the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC). Following that hearing she then gave an interview to Sky News in which she compared her own treatment to how it felt to be a Jew in Nazi Germany. A transcription of the most relevant section of the Sky News interview and the interview itself are below:

“On the day that I heard that they were going to discipline me and possibly suspend me, it felt almost like – I kept thinking what did it feel like to be a Jew in Germany in the Thirties?

“Because it felt almost as if they were coming for me. And it’s rather difficult to define, but there’s that fear, and it reminded me of what my Dad used to say. He always said to me as a child, “You’ve gotta keep a packed suitcase at the door, Margaret, in case you ever have to leave in a hurry. When I heard about the disciplinary [action], my emotional response resonated with that feeling of fear that clearly was at the heart of what my father felt when he came to Britain.”

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And here is Norman Finkelstein’s response in full:

“Dame Hodge hasn’t a clue what it means to talk about deportations, having a suitcase and being prepared to flee. My parents, both of them, were in the Warsaw Ghetto from 1940s until the repression by the Nazis of the uprising in 1943. They were deported at the Umschlagplatz. If you go there now there’s a monument to the deportees, and my mother’s name Maryla and my father’s name Zacharias; they’re on that monument.

“You haven’t a clue, Ms Hodge, Dame Hodge, you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. You know the suffering? You know the death? My mother used to talk about how she walked the streets of the ghetto and there were dead bodies all around her. She lost both of her parents, all of her family: her sisters, her brother were deported. But unlike you Dame Hodge they weren’t deported to a summer home, they were deported to a death camp. My parents ended up in Auschwitz and Majdenek, and slave labour camps. Where are you going Ms Hodge? To Switzerland? To your chalet? And you have the gall, the brass, the audacity to compare your life with what my parents endured.

“You felt it was like 1930s, when you got a letter from the disciplinary committee. I wonder Dame Hodge when you were in sixth grade and your principal called you down to his office, did it bring back memories of the Holocaust? Or maybe you got a letter from the tax office, and they called you down, did that remind you of the Holocaust? What’s the point… What’s the relevance… What’s the pertinence of dragging in the suffering, the death, the martyrdom of what Jews endured during World War II in this context, except to cheapen and exploit the memory of Jewish suffering, as you carry on a blackmail and extortion racket against Jeremy Corbyn.

“It’s disgusting, it’s revolting, and if any of the rules that are now being implemented in the Labour Party have any meaning whatsoever, if they have any content whatsoever, the first person who should be booted out of the Labour Party is Dame Hodge, for trivialising the memory the Nazi Holocaust and for making wretched, disgusting, repulsive comparisons between herself and what Jews endured during World War II.

“Speaking of bags and suitcases, Dame Hodge, it’s time now to pack your bags, pack your suitcase, and get the hell out of the Labour Party.”

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Norman Finkelstein later spoke with George Galloway on his ‘TalkRadio’ show about “the crucifixion of Corbyn and how to combat it”:

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Addendum: the fuller background story and a Palestinian’s response

The smear campaign that falsely accuses Jeremy Corbyn of antisemitism on the basis of guilt by association goes back all the way to the period of his first election as Labour leader, but this latest episode involving Margaret Hodge comes at a time when the party has been considering the adoption of the full IHRA definition of “antisemitism”: a change to the rules that if implemented will curtail the freedom speech of party members to openly speak out against Israel.

On August 13^th, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu waded into this debate after he provocatively accused Corbyn of laying a wreath on the grave of “a terrorist”. Margaret Hodge was one of a number of Labour MPs who seized upon the opportunity to further tighten pressure on Corbyn. As the Guardian reported on August 14^th:

The Labour MP Margaret Hodge said the only way “Jeremy Corbyn can put this issue to bed” is to “adopt the internationally agreed definition of antisemitism in full”. She said: “Until he does that, incidents such as his presence at the laying of wreaths at the graves of those responsible for torturing and murdering innocent Jewish Israeli athletes in Munich will continue to emerge.”

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Ghada Karmi is a Palestinian scholar and doctor of medicine who lives in England and teaches at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies in the University of Exeter; she is also a member of the Labour Party. On August 21^st, Marc Steiner of The Real News interviewed Karmi to hear the viewpoint of a Palestinian on the “antisemitism” campaign against Corbyn. Transcribed below is part of her interview – the complete interview is embedded within:

“I mean that is so ludicrous it makes one laugh. First of all the [laying of the wreath] incident took place in 2014, now you’ve got to ask yourself why do they wait till 2018 to make such a fuss if it was so offensive, it should have been pointed out in 2014. However, they’ve waited four years because, of course, it’s not about whatever happened in Tunis, it’s about attacking Jeremy Corbyn.

Now the event was very simply this. Corbyn and some other British political leaders were invited by the Tunisian government to a conference whose subject was Israeli aggression and its effect on the Palestinian people: that’s actually what the conference was. Now the ceremony was to commemorate and lay a wreath on the graves of Tunisians and Palestinians together, who perished in an Israeli bombing attack in 1985. Now that’s what actually happened. It’s not my perspective; it’s what happened. Now Netanyahu, who has joined the pack of Corbyn hunters for his own reasons, came into this and outrageously really – he’s a foreign leader, he’s the leader of a foreign state; he has no business interfering in a domestic issue, however he barged in – and he accused Corbyn of laying a wreath on the graves of quote “terrorists”. Now there were no terrorists amongst the victims of the Israeli bombing attack.

So the problem is that he has joined the side of the people who want to discredit Corbyn so he never becomes a Prime Minister – and I can’t stress this too strongly – that the idea of a pro-Palestinian, a pro-justice British Prime minister is anathema to certain groups of people, Israel and its friends most prominently.”

[from 5:20 mins]

 “The issue really is that the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has been subjected to an unprecedented attack, by members of his own party, by a lobby of people claiming to hunt anti-Semites, and by some parts of the British press. It is an unprecedented and very bad attack which he does not deserve. Now, in terms of what he has actually done, the answer is nothing. What has he done to offend these people – the thing he really has done to offend them, is that he supports Palestine, and the rights of Palestinians, and he has supported that all of his political life. That is something that is an anathema to certain Jewish groups in Britain, friends of Israel, and members of his own party who don’t want him to become Prime Minister. That is the reality of the position. It’s very depressing and very wrong, but that aspect of it has not been put forward often enough and strongly enough. This is about Palestine and it’s about Israel’s maltreatment of the Palestinian people and it’s about the desire of defending of Israel to attack people who support the Palestinians because they want to defend Israel.”

[from 3:05 mins]

“We as a Palestinian group are very, very anxious that our voice is heard and that our point of view is taken into account because far too often the media, the political elite, is held hostage to a lobby that does not hesitate to use the “antisemitism” smear because they know it’s effective, and it discredits the people whether it’s true or not. Now we as Palestinians have found it almost impossible to persuade people who are so devoted to Israel that they can’t see straight to try to explain to them there is a whole story there which is not simply a question of being anti-Jewish when you criticise Israel. You have to criticise Israel because it behaves in ways which are illegal and very aggressive. And if you don’t feel able to criticise a state that does that and not be labelled as some kind of racist then you know it’s a terrible world we’re living in.”

[from 10:20 mins]

“But you know it’s very, very serious to allow groups of people with their own agendas to use antisemitism as a tool – to weaponise it, to use a popular term – to weaponise it in order to defend certain behaviours on the part of Israel. It’s very, very serious. People should take it seriously. I mean it’s not a joke to try to discredit any political person… discredit what they’re saying by accusing them of being Jew-haters. The term “anitsemitism” by the way is not very useful any more. It’s very emotive. We need to talk about Jew-hatred. Is it really the case that if you criticise the policies of the Israeli state and its army that this is hatred of Jews? Of course not. When you put it like that you know very well it’s nonsense. But, it’s weaponised, it’s used cynically by people who want to defend Israel.”

[from 14:45 mins]

Please note that all transcriptions are my own.