I Understand

British film director Ken Loach says that a rise in anti-Semitism in Europe since the Gaza crisis is "not surprising and understandable".

He was responding to a report earlier this week by the Vienna-based agency for fundamental rights (FRA) which said cases of anti-Semitism had risen across Europe since last December.

.   .
"There does seem to be a relationship between the rise of anti-Semitism in the EU and the situation in the Middle East," said Ioannis Dimitrakopoulos, one of the paper's authors.

But, speaking in Brussels on Wednesday, Loach said, "If there has been a rise I am not surprised. In fact, it is perfectly understandable because Israel feeds feelings of anti-Semitism."

Loach, famous for films like Kes, Cathy Come Home and Riff Raff, stressed that "no-one can condone violence".

Understandable, eh? Here’s a sentence.  “Kate chucked a plate at Brian.  Her fury was understandable, since he had called her a big fat pig, and said he was embarrassed to be seen with her in public.”

We don’t condone Kate’s violence – Brian has a bruise on his face, and it’s not a good look for a customer facing sales consultant - but her anger is understandable.

Here’s another:-  “Brian broke Kate’s jaw and put her into hospital.  His anger was understandable, because she had put the dinner on the table ten minutes later than the usual time.”

See the difference?  If you say some action is “understandable” you half way condone it as a reasonable response to someone’s actions.  You may not condone the full expression of that response but the response itself is fine.

Here’s another.  “Brian went and kicked Wendy Brown who’s a friend of Kate’s.  This was understandable, as Kate had been flirting in an unseemly way with blokes down at the pub.”

After 9/11 a mosque and a Pakistani community centre were fire bombed in Edinburgh.  I’d dreaded something like that so like Ken Loach I wasn’t surprised.  And I understood it because I know racist thugs will be racist thugs.  But I didn’t think, it is understandable that random British Muslims (and Hindus and Sikhs who look like them) get grief because of the activities of some Saudis based in Hamburg.  Disgraceful and totally crappy were the adjectives that sprang to my mind. Something understandable is not something understood.  Something understandable is something excused.

I thought this kind of softness towards anti-semitism was a new phenomenon on the anti-imperialist left, and possibly an infection they had picked up from their new comrades, the islamists, whose ideology contains anti-semitism of Mein Kampf proportions.  But in fact it has been around for a long time.  Steve Cohen’s pamphlet, That's funny, you don't look anti-Semitic, written in 1984, gives a good potted history of the socialism of fools.  You can read it here.

But the director, who has spoken out against Israel in the past, branded the report as a "red herring" designed to "distract attention" from Israel's recent military actions.

So Jews can get kicked in Golders Green without an indignant squeak from anyone in case it “distracts” from Israel’s recent military actions?  I can’t see the distraction myself – all the time it was happening the war in Gaza was the only thing you heard or read about on the news.  The chances of Israel coming off the radar are highly remote. 

We can expect more anti-semitism, but no investigation into what is perfectly understandable after all and anyway concern about which distracts from what all attention should be totally concentrated on, i.e. the misdeeds of Israel.

I would not recommend anyone punching Ken Loach. He’s an old man, and so shouldn’t be punched.  But it would be understandable if someone did so.  Though I wouldn’t condone it, of course.

Comments

[Frank]

Well said. I note also that the most vicious attacks on Jews came from the leftist origins, supporters, and leadership of Hitler and Stalin. Leftists seem to claim the moral high ground as if by right, yet their history is appalling.

[Bialik]

A really good post.

[Brigada Flores Magon]

And yet Rudolf Rocker, the German gentile producer of most of the anarchist Yiddish press in pre-1914 London, doesn't fit at all into the first comment. Terrible when truth gets in the way of right-wing foam-fleckery.

[Jacob]

Here is my response to Brigada's support of left wing antisemitism, ( I posted this on zblog earlier today):

Loach’s comments were nothing less than a call to violent attacks on Jews. I hope that any victim of antisemitic violence in Europe sues him for instigating violence against Jews. I would compare his comments to the way antisemites like Pound in the 30’s used to excuse violence against Jews by blaming Jewish bankers for the economic miseries of “the people”

In any case, Ken Loach and other like minded Marxist antisemites are stupid because by their logic no person and no government should be blamed for red baiting. In fact it’s the Marxist themselves who are to blame for anti communists from Franco to Pinochet since Marxists governments all over the world had killed millions of people.

[Jacob]

Loach’s comments were nothing less than a call to violent attacks on Jews. I hope that any victim of antisemitic violence in Europe sues him for instigating violence against Jews. I would compare his comments to the way antisemites like Pound in the 30’s used to excuse violence against Jews by blaming Jewish bankers for the economic miseries of “the people”

In any case, Ken Loach and other like minded Marxist antisemites are stupid because by their logic no person and no government should be blamed for red baiting. In fact it’s the Marxist themselves who are to blame for anti communists from Franco to Pinochet since Marxists governments all over the world had killed millions of people.

[Alec]

So good a point you needed to post it twice, Jacob.

Rosie, can I call Loach a cunt on a lady's blog?

[Rosie]

Alec - I really do hate that word, I must say. Though I swear a good deal - what cyclist doesn? - I don't use it.

For a discussion on whether it is a misogynistic term see here about halfway down:-

http://shirazsocialist.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/richard-seymour-an-apology/#comments

[Post]

Rosie, I suggest you watch the Vagina Monologues, where the word is joyfully reclaimed in all its manifestations. One should not be precious about words - whether he's a prick, a cock, a dickhead or a cunt, I'd prefer a close association with any of those body parts than with him.

[Anderw Coates]

Excellent post: never trusted Loach anyway. I recall he had links with the WRP, a party that showed where 'understanding' of anti-semitism can get you.

There was a period when the WRP justified torture by 'progressive' Arab regimes. I don't recall Loach ever protesting at that. Probably already thought it was 'understandable'.

[richard]

Ken Loach is a total moron. Britian went half way around the world to fight a war in the Falklands and nobody said a word. Israel is fighting rocket shooting, suicide bombing maniacs right on their own border. Terrorists who hide and shoot behind their own civilains and have fired 8000 rockets into Israel. I repeat Ken Loach is total moron and his foolosh words are condoning anti-semitism.

[Brigada Flores Magon]

I'm astonished to find that my flagging up the example of the anarcho-syndicalist Rudolf Rocker as a left wing supporter of Jewish anarchism is being touted as support for Loach. I would have thought that it would have been obvious to the meanest intelligence that Rocker was an example of left-wing philosemitism and thus an exception to the Loach line. I can only consider Jacob's line to be a wilful misconstruction of my post. GTF.

[Tasmanian Boycot!]

I do not understand why anyone would listen to this fool...and the dumb jerk has just boycotted himself from the Melbourne festival aswell.I am so very pleased to see that they(melbfest) told him to fuck off and take his crap film with him back to the home of the surveilance cam....the fool is oblivious to the attrocities committed in his own name by recent Brittish govts...ect,ect ect.

[Tasmanian Boycot!]

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Ken Loach is only an ignaorant anti-semitist, he better get a life and shut up.

[Rob]

Well said Rosie

Nick Cohen is right about how the left post its way