Jonathan Cook

Two weeks ago you were saying the Labour Party got it wrong on Gaza. Now you're accepting a report that will effectively ban meaningful and robust criticism of Israel in schools - and which plainly amounts to discrimination against any person expressing anti-Zionist views, despite it being a protected belief. It candidly and despicably says Muslims disproportionately express antisemitic views, because they hold anti-Israel views. It says 45% of all British people are antisemitic because they believe Israel treats Palestinians like Nazis treated the Jews - such would make NAZA antisemitic too. It recommends schools more actively involve Prevent - PREVENT! - where students express anti-Zionist or anti-Israel views. Appallung, gutless, reckless and inflammatory stuff, none of which will withstand even cursory legal scrutiny. The Labour Together Project lives on in the muscle memory of this genocide-complicit Labour administration.

The new independent review on antisemitism has been sliced, diced and briefed to the media before Joe Public can read it. So we have no idea how rigorous its metholodologies or assumptions are; and it sticks in the craw that the messaging from it is being repeated and controlled in the media before it can be properly scrutinised by the ordinary public. It is a painful thing to have to even consider whether this review can be taken in good faith or whether it should be contested, but we have seen how the genuinely important fight against antisemitism has been debased by the Labour Together project, which frequently conflated robust criticism of Israel with antisemitism and has consistently worked to constrain the range of acceptable speech on Israel - including cracking down and criminalising protest against Israel's conduct abroad through, for example, proscribing Palestine Action. This independent review was initiated by a Labour Together alum, Bridget Philipson, under the government of Starmer, who will now receive the report and (most likely) accept its findings. So what do know about it? Not much, beyond what has been briefed, but its Terms of Reference indicate three things: 1. The review uses the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism to identify antisemitic incidents. The IHRA Definition, when read in totality, has the effect of making any form of anti-Zionism antisemitic. Practically, it has often been used to stigmatise fair but robust criticism of Israel as antisemitic. For example, it states the claim 'Israel is a racist endeavour' is antisemitic because it denies the Jewish right to self-determination, even though Israel's founding included the systematic and racist persecution of Palestinians in the Nakba. The review's methodology will almost certainly capture anti-Zionism as antisemitic. But approximately 12% of all Jewish people identify as anti-Zionist. Considerably more young Jewish people identify as anti-Zionist: approximately 25% of British Jews aged 20-29 are anti-Zionist, while 20% are non-Zionist. Less than 50% of British Jews between 20 and 29 are Zionist. The adoption of the IHRA Definition, and its elastic application to describing robust criticism of Israel, is hugely problematic from a methodological point of view, and is likely to significantly expand the number of recorded incidents, and will likely capture statements made by anti-Zionist Jews, as well as robust-but-fair criticism of Israel as it commits genocide. It's application outside of extremely limited contexts has already been disavowed by the person who drafted it, Kenneth Stern, who wrote in 2019 that it had been 'weaponised' by right-wing actors in the US. 2. The practical applications of what constitutes antisemitism appear to be highly judgemental and arguable. They give one example in the terms of reference (included below), which says it is always antisemitic to compare Jews to Nazis. On this version, NAZA, co-produced by the Guardian and on-track to win mountains of documentary awards, contains antisemitic material because it includes IDF Officers comparing Israel's genocide in Gaza to the conduct of the Nazis in Germany towards Jews. Now, I personally think comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is often unhelpful and inflammatory; but its not inherently antisemitic (depending on the context and the mode of expression) in light of Israel's genocide in Gaza and settler terrorism in the West Bank. It's also a view shared by very large number of British people - a survey in 2025 found that 45% of all British people believed Israel treats Palestinians like the Nazis treated Jews. This was up from 33% in 2024. A full 60% of people aged 18-24 in Britain think the comparison is accurate. This review starts with the premise, in effect, that 45% of British people (and 60% of young university and college-aged Brits) are antisemitic and their views must policed in school and college environments. 3. I simply don't think you can have a credible 'independent' review that includes anyone from the Board of Deputies of British Jews. The Board - an explicitly Zionist organisation - has a horrible record of conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and a particularly horrible record in defending Israel in light of its conduct in Gaza. One of the reviewers is Karen Newman, the Deputy Vice-President of the Board of Deputies. My hunch is that this is going to be another inflammatory, unhelpful intervention of the likes pioneered by the CST and ADL, which expands the definition of antisemitism so broadly as to stigmatise significant expressions of pro-Palestinian activism as a form of antisemitism. I genuinely worry that the government, in accepting this report, will likely inflame tensions in schools, forcing a top-down one-size-fits-all approach to a nuanced topic on school leaders. It is these leaders who have already been dealing with these vexed topics, and I have little doubt that they will continue to be best placed to navigate these complex issues in their communities on their own. We already saw how this reckless top-down approach played out in genuinely despicable ways when Steve Reed accused Bristol Brunel academy of blocking the visit of Damien Egan because he was Jewish - an allegation that was subsequently pilloried in OFSTED reviews, but only after creating huge local upset and uproar, and significantly disrupting the functioning of the school I don't see how a draconian, top-down policing of discussion on Israel in schools is not going to cause huge tensions and uproar amongst students and teachers. And I have almost zero faith that the remnants of the Labour Together project in government will tackle this issues sensitively or appropriately, or without the heaviest possible hand.