When it comes to anti-Semitism in left-wing British politics, the problems begin with Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and filter down. But the British Left has a particularly anti-Semitic reflex when it comes to its understanding of American Jews.
A good example of this came on Wednesday, when the Jewish Chronicle identified Thomas Gardiner, a Labour Party official who had ruled that the image below is not anti-Semitic, but simply anti-Israel. That finding allowed Kayla Bibby, the Labour activist who posted the picture and captioned it “the most accurate photo I’ve seen all year,” to avoid expulsion from the party.
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Of course, Gardiner’s finding was absurd. The purple Star of David is different from the blue of that on the Israeli flag. It must thus be regarded as a representation of Judaism rather than Israel. Second, the monster on Lady Liberty’s face seems to be a “face hugger” from the Alien movie franchise. Considering that the face huggers inject aliens into humans which then kill the humans, its use here implicates the anti-Semitic trope of a Jewish fifth column corrupting otherwise decent people.
But I’m not at all surprised with Gardiner’s understanding here. When it comes to British leftist perspectives on American Jews and American society, the baseline attitude is distinctly anti-Semitic. Because that attitude assumes that American Jews are both perniciously wealthy and highly manipulative — a la face hugger.
This sits well with the British Left’s deep anti-Americanism, which despises U.S. foreign policy architecture, such as NATO, as well as capitalism, and individual freedom in priority over the collective. It is the commonly understood opinion of the British political classes, conservatives included, that pro-Israel attitudes in the U.S. are simply bought. I remember trying to persuade my classmates at SOAS University of London that the primary motivation for U.S. pro-Israeli attitudes was not money, but rather shared perception in the vein of a democratic nation resisting violent extremism.
But that’s what conspiratorial understandings of American Judaism and America’s affinity for Israel have wrought in Britain. And hence, why otherwise decent people allow anti-Semitism to seep into their Facebook pages, or simply tolerate it in their midst.
