CAA responds to claim in The Guardian that CAA is a pawn of the Israeli government
Campaign Against Antisemitism has responded to a claim in The Guardian for the second time claiming that we are a pawn of the Israeli government.
The claim was first made in 2015, when The Guardian printed a letter alleging that antisemitism in Britain was being exaggerated and that “the CAA was set up last summer, not to fight antisemitism but to counter rising criticism of Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza.” At the time, CAA Chairman Gideon Falter responded with a letter setting out the facts of rising antisemitism, and asking: “Why can some of your readers not accept the facts for what they are and address the very real problem of antisemitism, rather than supposing in spite of the evidence that it is a fiction, or that it does exist but would cease to if Jews supported Israel less? Jewish concerns must not be silenced by conspiracy theorists railing about Israel.”
On Tuesday, we were accused of being “pro-Israel lobbyists” in The Guardian again, this time because we have dared to condemn Jeremy Corbyn’s peerage for Shami Chakrabarti in return for her whitewash report clearing him and the party of rampant antisemitism.
Both claims were made in letters to The Guardian signed by a fringe assortment of British Jews.
CAA Chairman Gideon Falter has again responded with a letter:
A letter (9 August), signed by a fringe assortment of British Jews, accused Campaign Against Antisemitism of being “pro-Israel lobbyists” because we believe that Jeremy Corbyn has allied himself with and granted impunity to antisemites on the left, the latest example of which being his peerage for Shami Chakrabarti in return for her report clearing him and the party of rampant antisemitism. How shameful that in 2016, as a Jew who opposes antisemitism, I have to write to a British newspaper for the second time in a year to refute the allegation that our charity, set up exclusively to fight antisemitism, is actually a pawn employed by a foreign government to smear its enemies.
Antisemitism in the Labour party is real and recognised by the full cross-denominational spectrum of British Jews. Had that antisemitic slur against Campaign Against Antisemitism been signed by anything other than a tiny collection of Jews whose views are abhorred by the mainstream Jewish community, you would not have dared to publish it.
CAA’s Regulatory Enforcement Unit is complaining to the Independent Press Standards Organisation.