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Comment by ahartmetz | Hacker News Reader

Ah, the Guardian. The "leftist" newspaper that character-assassinated leftist prime minister candidate Jeremy Corbyn for antisemitism. It felt... kind of blood-thirsty, and it was quite the bullshit accusation, too. I can't take that rag seriously anymore.

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Consider that The Guardian does not itself claim to be leftists. It's classically liberal. The lack of many other outlets for leftists in the UK with reasonable reach and The Guardian's willingness to print opinion pieces by leftists, and some overlap in policy is what has given it a reputation in the UK as leftist. Most other places in Western Europe it'd be considered centrist to centre right on most issues, and downright regressive on some.

on the subject of using accusations of anti-Semitism to stifle political debate inside the labour party, I'd recommend watching "the lobby" episode 3 [1]. Ironically the documentary itself was accused of antisemitism but Ofcom ruled against it. [2]

[1] - https://youtu.be/L3dn-VV3czc

[2] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/9/ofcom-dismisses-com...

I don't think JC is antisemitic himself. He just had tolerated it for a long time and had many friends who were openly antisemitic. But it's interesting how you are more concerned about the accusations than actual toxic atmosphere of antisemitism itself within the Labour Party. It is very similar to corbyn himself actually

Neither were his friends. They were just all very critical of Israel precisely because they were antiracist.

99% of the accusations of racism and antisemitism on his followers came from people who instinctively defended a racist, apartheid state.

Ironically he responded to the attacks by earnestly and fervently rooting out what miniscule levels of antisemitism there were within in the party.

This did nothing to appease the attackers or stem the attacks mostly because the most concerted accusations of antisemitism were motivated entirely by, well, racism. They didnt want an antiracist they wanted the right kind of racist - one supporting Israel (like Orban).

The establishment that didnt give a damn about israel also piled on because they hated him for separate reasons (e.g. he was going to raise their taxes). They were happy to let the gargantuan double standards be unchallenged - including the guardian.

In a final twist of irony Jews in the Labour party are 5x more likely to be purged than non Jews: https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/labour-is-pu...

These Jews are not the right kind of racist.

> because they hated him for separate reasons (e.g. he was going to raise their taxes).

I think that that was the real driving force there. The people who were serious about the accusations were probably useful idiots. And I don't think that the Guardian was among the useful idiots, because people at the Guardian don't seem to operate at that level of idiocy...

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