They are not my mates and you have proved nothing apart from you feel we are all to blame for something we had no part in. I am not responsible for Kaufman saying Israel is behaving like a fascist state nor am I responsible for others in the party machine who used antisemitism as a weapon to attack figures they didn't like. The real culprits are the ones who did use antisemitism as a tool to attack people, they should be who you take to task not some lad off the internet who you know personally in your heart is not antisemitic. I am as angry at them for their disgusting behaviour as I am as angry as any perpetrator of racism. Its not a contest, I abhor racism and discrimination in any form and you know if I was in your company I would not stand for anyone being racist towards you and I think everybody on here would do the same.
That being said I will also not stand for the CAA bullying people either with spurious claims, they are as bad as the racists in my opinion because they are also using race as a weapon for nefarious purposes.
Where we differ here is you see perpetrators of racism and I see perpetrators of racism as two separate groups, we both agree there was a disgusting amount of racism aimed at a vulnerable and often persecuted section of society and we both want it to end and never be seen or heard again. We disagree on who is responsible, you believe everyone is responsible and I see a certain section of people as responsible. We are not denying it existed because it did exist and we disagree on scale. I am not Jewish so I cannot imagine the hurt you feel, but I was a member of a party that exacerbated that hurt. The facts in the report show it was overstated but that doesn't mean it didn't exist, it did exist and logically as it did exist it was overstated as the report shows, therefore there had to a body of people responsible for overstating it and using antisemitism for a purpose. There people are not your mates, nor are they my mates, they are the enemy of all good and decent people in the UK, because if it wasn't the Jewish community who had been used it would have been another community as these people did not care who they used as long as they got what they wanted. I really do think Col that by trying to undermine us with your statements you are doing anti racism no favours because it us who will back you and support you against serious threats in the future. The CAA are also doing this, they are accusing life long anti racists and demanding action against them to such an extent I fear they will erode an already fragile trust in our politicians to even lower levels and that then does open the door for extremists and the type of politician who really do hold vile views and really do want to cause harm against your community.
The real truth lies somewhere in between our two poles of opinion, what cant be disputed is that there was antisemitism, what can be disputed is the scale and who perpetrated it. Either way I hope you realise that I am not an apologist, I am as anti racist as I have always been and always will be.
www.theguardian.com
www.independent.co.uk