Liz Truss Anti-Semitism FAIL

As the Tory leadership debate continues, the candidates seemingly oblivious to the impending mayhem over a cost of living crisis that includes steepling energy bill rises coming on down the track, so front runner Liz Truss blunders from one exhibition of tone deaf politics to the next. Today has not disappointed, as she has arrived at the subject of anti-Semitism.

Another day, another horrendous gaffe

Earlier this week, demonstrating a less than impartial stance on the matter, Adam Cannon, head of legal for the Murdoch Sun, told his followers “Good to hear from [Liz Truss] at the [Conservative Friends Of Israel] hustings tonight. She rightly says that Iran must not be able to get a nuclear weapon. She says she will stand up for Israel and attack antisemitism. Emphasising Israel as a true beacon of freedom and democracy”. Fast forward to this morning.

Sophia Sleigh of the Huff Post told that “In her latest campaign release, Liz Truss says that woke civil service culture ‘strays into antisemitism’ as she vows support for British Jews”. WHAT? Once again, let us consider the actual definition of the term Woke: “alert to injustices in society, especially racism”. Ms Truss is just spraying the word around as a pejorative dog whistle.

And the campaign release that Ms Sleigh mentions confirms this. “Liz Truss has today put in place a comprehensive plan to boost links between the UK and Israel, and protect British Jewry from creeping anti-Semitism and wokeism”. To protect British Jewry from those who are alert to injustices in society, and especially racism? But there was more. Maybe too much more.

“Speaking from a Synagogue in Manchester, Liz Truss has said … she will change woke Civil Service culture that strays into anti-Semitism … Talking about Civil Service wokeism, Liz said ‘Every organisation has its culture, but it’s not fixed, it can be changed … That’s what ministerial leadership is about: it’s about making sure the policies we represent, the values we stand for, are reflected in what we do”. Like inventing “wokeism” and then lying about it?

But do go on. “I’ve been very clear with our officials about the positions we take on Israel, and that will continue of I become Prime Minister”. And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. One, she ponies up no evidence to back up her anti-Semitism claim. And Two, if she’s conflating “Jews” and “Israel”, that is in itself anti-Semitic. The IHRA definition says so.

It got worse: Adam Bienkov of Byline Times noted the civil service claim and added “A Truss campaign source also accused Labour under Keir Starmer of being ‘a talking shop for antisemitism and antizionism’”. And he added this.

“No evidence provided for either of these charges”. What she seems to have missed is that Keir Starmer’s wife is Jewish. The couple’s two children are being raised in the Jewish faith of their mother. So, the message to Liz Truss is, to paraphrase what Major Dalby told Harry Palmer, “the next time you cite evidence of Labour anti-Semitism, just make sure you have it”.

Moreover, it would be interesting to hear confirmation from Ms Truss that she is going to be equally tough on anti-Semitism when it is real, and emanates from those within her own party. Like, oh I dunno, a report from earlier this year in Jewish News, telling “Five Conservative councillors in [now former] party chairman Oliver Dowden’s Hertsmere constituency have been formally reprimanded over their involvement in an election smear campaign waged against a Jewish Labour Party candidate”. And there is more. A lot more.

Like Suella Braverman deploying the anti-Semitic “Cultural Marxism” trope, being told what it meant, and still using it. Her colleague Ben Bradley also pitched the “Cultural Marxism” line. Like Priti Patel talking very pointedly about the “North. London. Metropolitan. Liberal. Elite”. And yet more.

Jacob Rees Mogg, member for times long past, smearing John Bercow and Oliver Letwin as “Illuminati”, another old anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, and claiming that George Soros bankrolled the Remain campaign. Then there is soon formerly alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

As the Guardian pointed out in late 2019, just before that year’s General Election, “Boris Johnson has invoked some of the oldest and most pernicious antisemitic stereotypes in a book he wrote when he was a Conservative shadow minister. He describes ‘Jewish oligarchs’ who run the media, and fiddle the figures to fix elections in their favour”. Could it get worse?

Don’t ask. “He portrays a Jewish character, Sammy Katz, with a ‘proud nose and curly hair’, and paints him as a malevolent, stingy, snake-like Jewish businessman who exploits immigrant workers for profit … Johnson has form when it comes to anti-Jewish hatred [Taki is mentioned] … Even now Johnson continues to cosy up to Donald Trump, despite his rhetoric about Jewish disloyalty and support for neo-Nazis”. Oh dear, Ms Truss!

I give you Liz Truss: hot on anti-Semitism, especially the kind for which she doesn’t need to pony up any evidence, while saying nothing about incidences of it in her own party. A worse PM than Bozo? It’s looking that way.

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