This almost certainly says as much about Murray himself as it does about Corbyn, but in any case, this definitely speaks to some of the reasons why some of the far left struggles with antisemitism.
It’s true that, relative to our historic position, Jews in Britain *are* better off now. And antisemitism isn’t a form of “oppression”, in a systemic sense, in this country: I’m unlikely to be denied a job or a tenancy, or face police brutality, because I’m Jewish.
Does that mean antisemitism is therefore a marginal prejudice, not worth bothering with, essentially “victimless”, and maybe even a form of “punching up”, because of the “relatively prosperous” position of the Jewish community? Emphatically not.
Forms of bigotry that function primarily “ideologically”, rather than “systemically”, can still be deeply dangerous. And given certain conditions it’s not hard to see how a primarily “ideological” bigotry could quickly take on a “material” form. We have to be alive to that risk.
Let’s also remember that Jews are less than a century away from a systematic, industrialised attempt to literally exterminate us. Being told we’re “relatively prosperous” now doesn’t erase the impact of that on Jewish consciousness.
But there’s another element which makes antisemitism a particular danger for the left. Antisemitism isn’t just a binary, supremacist hierarchy - “Jews bad, non-Jews good” - it proffers a worldview. It has what Moishe Postone called a “pseudo-emancipatory dimension”...
...seeking to explain how the world is structured, and presenting as an ideology of resistance to the powers that be. That gives it a particular toxicity for the left, as a movement also seeking to explain how the world is structured and mobilise resistance to those structures.
If antisemitism is not understood, confronted, and rooted out, it will mislead, misdirect, and miseducated. It will not only harm Jews, but poison wholesale attempts to develop genuinely emancipatory politics.
This remains true whether or not Jews are, in a given historical moment, “marginalised.” If antisemitism is not understood and confronted, not only will it poison our politics, but the risk of it manifesting materially once again inevitably increases.
