David Hirsh

David Hirsh (born 29 September 1967) is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and co-founder of Engage, a campaign against the academic boycott of Israel.

Quotes

• One key fact about contemporary antisemitism is that it must not be mentioned. Antiracists are educated to assume that talk about antisemitism is an indicator of a Zionist attempt to silence the oppressed Palestinians; it is mis­recognized as the mobilisation of Jewish victim­power, the playing of the Holocaust card. The left is not hostile to Jews when they are powerless and stateless; but it finds it hard to shake the idea that Jews are untrustworthy and are connected to money. The image today is that the Jews have managed to strike a bargain with the American and capitalist devil; instead of playing their role as the symbol of the oppressed, they are conceived of as having saved themselves at the expense of everybody else.
  • "Jew hate and today's Left", The Jewish Chronicle (24 November 2016)

• The Labour Party breached the Equality Act by committing unlawful harassment against Jews by employing antisemitic tropes and by characterising complaints of antisemitism as fake smears. The cases adjudicated, says the EHRC report, were "the tip of the iceberg".
• Corbyn himself was imbued in antisemitic politics, and defended antisemites against Jews. Antisemitism, like other racisms, is about what you do, it's not about who you think you are.
  Apologists are now saying that Corbyn didn't do enough to tackle antisemitism. That gets things the wrong way round. Corbyn was the antisemitism.
  • "The 'Livingstone formula' is dead", The Jewish Chronicle (30 October 2020)

See also

• Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party