The recent furore surrounding a supposed ‘Labour antisemitism crisis’ is a classic propaganda blitz of the kind described in Part 1 of this alert.
Dramatic New Evidence
As with so many propaganda blitzes, intense media coverage was triggered by ‘dramatic new evidence’; namely, the discovery of a graphic posted by Naz Shah two years ago, before she became a Labour MP. The graphic shows a map of the United States with Israel superimposed in the middle, suggesting that a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict would be to relocate Israel to the US.
Shah’s post was highlighted by right-wing political blogger Paul Staines who writes as Guido Fawkes:
Naz Shah… shared a highly inflammatory graphic arguing in favour of the chilling “transportation” policy two years ago, adding the words “problem solved”.
Jonathan Freedland, comment editor at the Guardian, argued that leftists view Israel as ‘a special case, uniquely deserving of hatred’, and that this hatred ‘lay behind’ Shah’s call ‘for the “transportation” [of Israel to America] – a word with a chilling resonance for Jews’.
In the Observer, Andrew Rawnsley claimed that Shah believed ‘that Israelis should be put on “transportation” to America, with all the chilling echoes that has for Jews’.
Guardian assistant editor Michael White reported that Shah had been suspended from the Labour party ‘while the context of her antisemitic comments… are thoroughly…