What struck me most in David Graeber’s recent article for openDemocracy was the evident sincerity of his fear: the visceral nature of his foreboding that the overwhelming focus on – in Graeber’s view overblown and weaponised – accusations of antisemitism in the Labour Party is not only leading to the existential threat of right-wing antisemitism being downplayed, it is itself stoking antisemitism from those resentful at the cynicism of the allegations. (I do want to say that despite his claim, on tweeting his article, that ‘Jewish people are not allowed to say certain things in the UK’, many of the arguments that Graeber makes are actually very widely made and contested in the online debate.)
Taking the fear that different kinds of Jews feel seriously might be a starting point in resolving this horrible dispute. Surely a recognition of the fact that Jews with very different views on Corbyn may have felt the same sense of creeping anxiety in recent years might be a place from which dialogue could begin? That would, of course, be naïve. One thing we know about the insecurities of modern existence is that however much they may be widely felt – among Jews and everyone else – they generate radically different conclusions as to what the ‘real’ source of those insecurities are, and the prescriptions for addressing them.
Still, I do feel the urgency of pointing out to Graeber that the fears and resentments he describes so eloquently are in form, if not in content, very similar to those of other Jews who see Corbyn’s Labour Party as an existential threat.
